


[BOOK 1 of 4]  Macross: Voltron || A Voltron: Legendary Defender X Macross Delta Story

by DrCrossover



Series: Super Dimensional Voltron Force [1]
Category: Macross - All Media Types, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Hurt Pidge | Katie Holt, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character(s), Originally Posted Elsewhere, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29647914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrCrossover/pseuds/DrCrossover
Summary: Lt. Mathias Hunter Anderson, ace pilot onboard the Macross Garrison, never would have expected to be flung from a war against a Zentraedi fleet into a universal conflict against an alien race called the Galra.  What happens when he has to work with a brand new team with brand new rules and technologies, and meets a particular technocrat that he begins to develop feelings for?   Can he get back home?  Find out in the first installment in the Super Dimension Voltron Force fan series!  WARNING:  Blood and Gore, swearing.---------------------------------------------------------Book 1 of 4 in the Super Dimensional Voltron Force fan series!I do NOT OWN ANYTHING Besides Mathias and some of the fan elements in the story
Relationships: Pidge | Katie Holt & Original Character(s)
Series: Super Dimensional Voltron Force [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2178606





	1. Chapter 1: Lost

Hiya! This is my first post on AO3, so please be patient with me! :3  
  
This takes place 3 years after Macross Delta and at the end of Season 3 of Voltron. I will be skipping several episodes, so plz don't hate me if your favorite episode is cut. ALSO. There is a huge warning for language, blood and gore!

**I DO NOT OWN EITHER MACROSS NOR VOLTRON, VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER IS OWNED BY DREAMWORKS, WHILE MACROSS IS OWNED BY** **Shōji Kawamori** **and STUDIO NUE. Also, this ain't Robotech, it's Macross. (don't get me started with Harmony Gold. There are a few references to Robotech, though)**

Without further ado, it's time for Macross Voltron! 

* * *

_3rd person view_

Sadness. Cold, intense sadness is all he could feel in his heart as he stared out into space. The window in front of him casting his saddened expression. His deep blue eyes filled with grief, slightly filled with tears of mourning. The casting frown on his face was apparent. The long, blue hair that was made into a small ponytail floated behind him. His black and blue pilot uniform, while usually giving him a strong sense of strength, today felt empty and cold. Darkness clouded his mind, all he could think about was his past, his shattered family. These were the thoughts running through Macross Garrison's 17 year old ace pilot, Mathias Hunter Anderson. He was an only child in his family; scratch that, he was the **only** member in his family left. He was a full blooded Zentraedi pilot, and an exceptionally talented one just like Mathias. He died in combat when Mathias was only a couple of years old. A part of him wishes he had even an ounce of Zentraedi features like his dad probably had, but fate rolled otherwise. His mother, a full blooded American human, was lost only a few years ago following the influx of the Var. He watched her die from an explosion, but what startled him the most was her structure. Her eyes were entirely red, filled with unparalleled rage. Her stature was bulked, as her veins bulged from all around her body. She was entirely Var, and there was no saving her. She was nearby a burning building when it exploded, engulfing her in flames and killing her instantly. He screamed in pure fear as he tried to reach out to her, but what could he have done? He remembered just falling onto his knees, breaking down crying, and falling asleep from crying too hard. He vividly remembers someone picking him up and carrying him away from the burning rubble. Mathias stared into space as a squadron of three VF-171s flew in the distance, covering the stars with their bulky silhouettes and trails. Those fighters broke him out of that horrific transe. He sighed, seeing that in the distance began to remind him of a memory. One that was comforting, one that he was happy in.

~Flashback~

_The light of the nearby Kakizaki City was dimmed by the flowering nature around him, as the large trees blocked all of the lights from the city, giving him a beautiful view of the skies above. The entire sky was darkened, yet the skies were filled by a plethora of tiny, bright stars. Mathias remembers sitting on the cold, yet comforting grass in the small forest. He remembered smiling and laughing as he and his mother continued to stare into the sky. She was braiding his longer hair into a single, straight ponytail. Mathias' hands reached for the stars and made a sort of plane or ship, he couldn't recall which, but it was something along those lines. His arms motioned his hand to simulate that plane flying in the starry night. He continued doing this for a moment until his mother finished his ponytail, gently brushing it with a comb._

_"Mom, someday, I'm going to fly among the stars! I'm going to fly higher than any clouds in the sky!" Mathias exclaimed, all giddy from the passion of his dream._ _  
_ _  
_ _His mother laughed gently, "of course you will! You will make a great pilot, but remember what I said!"_

_"Don't join the military like dad did, I know, mom," he replied._

_"Good! I have full faith you will accomplish your dreams all too soon!" She smiled as she placed the comb on the ground. She pulled out a small band from a pocket in her jacket as she began to wrap around the back of his hair with it. A question began to build up in his mind. Unable to keep his mouth shut, he acted before he thought._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Mom, why did you not like that dad was in the military? Didn't he do so much for us?" He asked, tilting his head very slightly._ _  
_ _  
_ _"He..." Mathias heard a very small sigh come from her, the breath slightly rustling his hair. She let go of his hair, allowing him to turn his head to his mother. She looked saddened, conflicted, yet serious all at the same time, "he was never around for us when we needed him. He was always out on a mission. Yes, he did so much for us and the people he was serving, but if he stayed by his family instead of the skies," there was a slight pause before a single tear formed in her eye, "maybe he would've been here with us today."_

_"How did he die? You never told me exactly," he asked, his inner child curiosity got the better of him, completely ignoring the obvious signs to not pressure her._ _  
_ _  
_ _She took a deep breath, obviously trying to not break down in front of the young boy. Mathias couldn't remember her exact facial expression, but from what he can guess, she barely held on from shattering into tears, "You were only 6 years old when he died, he was on his way towards the Avalon Sector onboard the S.D.F.N-3 Jenius. Their mission was to locate the Megaroad-11, which had gone missing several years earlier. They were almost at the last known coordinates of the missing fleet when his own was attacked by the Vajra. They swarmed the Jenius and the surrounding vessels, killing so many onboard in the initial onslaught. He fought bravely, but was killed when he was shot by a high energy blast to the cockpit, killing him instantly. The Jenuis barely made it back with only 1/8 of it's fleet. It was mangled so badly, it was a miracle everything was still intact. When I found out about it, I tried to shield you away from the truth, but you didn't have very many memories of him. So now you know..."_

_Without warning, Mathias wrapped around his mother in a hug around her waist. She recoiled back in surprise, but quickly accepted it and tightly hugged him back. "I won't join the military," he said to her, "I'll be here for you, always."_

~flashback ending~

Mathias looked down to his uniform, his military uniform. The uniform itself was the same uniform design as Delta Squad on Ragna, only his uniform was entirely black and blue.

"I'm sorry, mom..." he said to himself, "I know I said I wouldn't do this sort of thing, but I guess fate chose otherwise, haha..." he sighed, "I... I know you would hate this. This uniform, my job..." he paused for a moment before a single tear rolled down his cheeks, he could see the light reflect off of it as it fell to the ground, "I miss you... I miss you and dad, so very much." A gentle melody slowly came into his head, one that calmed him that he learned from a legend, Ranka Lee. He never met her, but he listened to her, as well as many other singers' songs as well. He never realized he was lightly singing to himself.  
  
" _Aimo Aimo neede ruushe,_

_Noinamiria enderu purotea,_

_Foto mi..._

_Koko wa attakana umi da yo..."_

"You singing to yourself again, Anderson?" A female voice suddenly brought him back to reality. He turned his head slightly to the right to see three other pilots standing several yards away, their helmets under their arms. He knew who they were, they were a part of his team, Aigaion Squad. Mathias was Aigaion 3, he was the runner up for a hotshot pilot named Romero Tobrook, or Aigaion 2.

"You okay there, Mathias?" The blonde pilot asked. That was Angela Turner, Aigaion 4. She was an old friend of his and was very friendly. She had green eyes and was light colored for her skin. Her uniform was pink and a deep maroon. There was a giant, darker male behind her. His uniform was gold and maroon, and his eyes were amber. His name was Jeremy Stringer, Aigaion 5, a person who desires action and nothing more. The last of the group, and the smallest, was a tan skinned girl who had dark green hair. She was a definite full blood Zentraedi, thus her uniform was entirely grey, or a very dull green, Mathias couldn't tell, and black. Her name was Maxine Rania Sernus, or Aigaion 6 on the field. She was rather quiet and didn't talk much, her hair and eyes were a dark red.

Mathias sniffed as he rubbed his eyes with his sleeve, "y-yeah, I'm good," slight confusion overtook him, "what are you guys doing here?"  
  
"We were trying to find you. The Field Commander is about to explain the next assignment in a few minutes and you need to be a part of it. It's very important. Follow us to hangar bay 3," Angela replied, while Maxine gave a small point to you.

Mathias mentally smacked himself. He had forgotten all about the meeting today! "Alright, let's go. You lead the way." Angela nodded and the group soon traversed the hallways until they approached the entrance of hangar bay 3, where a particular man was leaning on the wall waiting for them. His uniform was Blood Red, Green and Black. He was an older, nonchalant man with a slight beard on his chin and a very slight tan skin tone. His hair was short and black and he eyes a deep brown. He had a pouch of what looked like French Fries in one of his hands, a fry sticking out of his mouth like a cigar. That was Commander Benjamin Taylor, the 40 year old leader of Aigaion Squadron, or put simply, Aigaion 1. He noticed us coming his way and waved for us to stop, his calm smile beaming brightly.

"There you are 1st Lieutenant Mathias Hunter Anderson, been looking for you for a while now," he smirked, waving a fry at the group, particularly at Mathias, before chomping down on it.

Mathias gave a salute, "sorry to keep you waiting co-" his mind froze as something didn't process correctly. _What_ did he just say? He threw the commander a confused look, "wait... 1st lieutenant?" He heard the murmurs of the others right behind him, but he didn't care, he wanted answers.

No way, 1st lieutenant?!" he heard Angela 'whisper', in all reality, it was just her voice, but slightly softer. It wasn't really a whisper, so to say.

"I know right? He was just promoted literally 3 weeks ago!" Jeremy added, his voice muffled by a hand covering it.

"Shhh! Be quiet! I want to hear this!" Angela shushed as the Commander stopped leaning off of the wall and stopped a few feet in front of the blue haired pilot, slightly looking down at him as the elder commander was in fact taller than him.

Commander Talyor smirked as he placed his free hand on Mathias shoulder, gently gripping it, "that's right. You are being promoted to 1st lieutenant. You are now officially Aigaion 2, so I'm going to need you to be up to date with regulations by tomorrow I know this is a little sudden, but..." He stopped as he munched on another fry.

"Wha... What happened to Lieutenant Romero, sir? I thought he was still Aigaion 2?" Mathias asked, scratching the back of his head in confusion, plus, it was itching slightly.

"Lt. Romero was promoted to Captain and transferred to Hermes Squadron after their commander died in action in the last battle. So, I needed a new second in command, you were the next in line," He explained all the while waving a fry in the air, only to completely devour it moments later. He suddenly dropped his arm to his side and grew a serious look, "I hope you will be able to step up to the plate when we need you."  
  
Mathias nodded nervously and saluted again, "I will, sir! I will not let you down!"

Commander Taylor, just like how his face suddenly became serious, immediately softened back into a grin, "good. Oh, and one more thing, I need you to follow me when this meeting is over. I have a little bit of a surprise waiting for you in the main hangar bay. Now, c'mon, the meeting is about to start. Mathias nodded as the group of 5 made their way into the hangar. Almost every squad, or at least squad leaders, were present. Mathias' squad was the last to enter, they could see the Field Commander scowling at them as they entered. His white high ranking officer uniform showed out from the mostly darker colored uniforms of everyone else in the room. He had a scar across his right eye, making his glares even more sinister and unnerving.

"Finally, the stragglers arrive," the commander's rough voice bellows from the opposite side of the room, "listen up people, now we can truly begin this conference so I can explain this mission." He pulled out a remote and clicked a button, slowly causing the room to darken around the hangar. The commander then pressed another button, displaying a holographic Megaroad class vessel. All eyes were either on the commander or the Megaroad. The commander cleared his throat, before beginning to speak, ""As you all know, in 2012, The first Megaroad class vessel, the S.D.F-2 Megaroad-1, launched from Earth along with a fleet of Zentraedi Ships. It was the first vessel from Mankind that was made to transcend the solar system and to colonize the stars. Everything was in order, that was until we lost contact with Captain Ichijo and Megaroad-1 in 2016. No one knows why the ship and its fleet mysteriously disappeared, and no one has really dwelled into it. Therefore, our orders are to investigate and locate the disappearance of the S.D.F-2, and aid if necessary. This ship, the S.D.F.N-12 Macross Garrison, will spearhead the search efforts, starting with the last known coordinates of the Megaroad-1. This would be an easy assignment, if it weren't the recent rogue Zentraedi attacks within the area that made it difficult. Your individual commanders will brief you on the rest. Any questions?"

A soldier in the back raised his hand and voice, "sir, how long ago was the recent report of Zentraedi attacks in the area?"  
  
"Good question. This was from several weeks ago, so slightly out of date, but hopefully still useful to us. It may be possible that these Zentraedi may be responsible for the disappearance of the S.D.F-2 all those years ago, but we won't know until we see it. Anyone else?" No one else said anything, which prompted the commander to adjust his cap, "Good luck, everyone. We will reach the last known position by later tomorrow. Dismissed!" Everyone began to file out of the hanger bay. Since Mathias' squad was towards the end, they were among the first to leave.

"I can't believe we're going on a search mission," Jeremy huffed, slumping forward in disappointment.

Mathias looked at him and glared, "hey! We get to find out what happened to one of the most historically significant ships in human history... well besides the S.D.F-1. Regardless, everything isn't about fighting, Jeremy."

"He's right, you know," Commander Taylor said as he walked past them, then turned his head to face Mathias, "1st lieutenant, please follow me." Mathias nodded and walked with the commander, looking back at his team one more time before they turned around a corner. As they continued to venture down the numerous hallways of the Macross, Mathias was bogged down in thought. _'What does the commander have for me? He's not the type to give out presents randomly, not even on Christmas...'_. When putting it in that light, it made Commander Taylor look like a self centered man, which wasn't the case. Mathias mentally shook the thoughts out of his head as they neared the entrance to the main hangar bay. Commander Taylor abruptly stopped, causing Mathias to nearly ram into him. Commander Taylor looked back at the young pilot, casting an expression of seriousness once again.

"Anderson, you are aware that your fighter model type, the VF-25 while incredibly talented, has begun to be shifted out of military service, correct?" He asked.

"Y-Yes, sir, I am aware," Mathias hesitated on that response, but his reason for hesitation was a little uncertain.

"I know how much you love piloting that old fighter of yours, but there comes a time where you have to change the horse you're riding on," he paused as he pressed some buttons on a nearby panel, causing the door to the hanger bay to open, "which is why you need to get used to the change from one to another." From the doorway, Mathias could see his team section of the hangar, as it was the first section that could be seen upon entering, since it was the closest to the door. He could see Angela, Jeremy and Maxine's VF-171 fighters, all rocking their signature pilot's colors, parked where they're supposed to be. However, upon glancing at his fighter, instead of seeing a VF-25, he glimpsed at a beautiful black and blue armored VF-31A parked where his original fighter was. Mathias was speechless as he dashed into the hangar and came up to his new fighter.

"No way... you upgraded my old fighter?!" Mathias quickly looked back at the Commander, who held a funny smile as he walked up to the excited 17 year old.

"Yup, augmented with the latest technology CHAOS and the U.N Spacy has to offer, not to mention it's an armored variant," he said while eating another fry. Mathias never realized until then that he somehow obtained more fries without him even looking. Did he have a stache in a pocket or something?

"I get to fly an armored variant!?" Mathias squealed in excitement.

"Sure do, kid. Now, go on and get a feel for your new fighter," Mathias was about to ascend to the cockpit when Taylor spoke up again, "oh, and one more thing, I left you a manual in your quarters. It has all the necessary information about being second in command and its unique protocols. When you're done here, head back to your quarters and take a moment to read over it." Mathias gave a thumbs up and smiled as he climbed the extendable ladder to his fighter's cockpit. Commander Taylor chuckled lightly, "alright, I'll leave you to your exploration, but don't stay up there too long, got it?"

"Got it! Thanks, Commander!" Mathias nodded with a wholehearted smile, which prompted the older man to smirk before walking out, continuing to eat fries as he left. For the next 30 minutes, Mathias examined every inch of his new fighter, messed with all the controls and turned everything to his specifications. Of course, the real challenge would be how it operates when in combat. Mathias closed the cockpit as he hopped down onto the metal surface below. He looked back at the marvelous machine behind him. That's when he noticed there were several large notches on some of the armor platings on top, and two at the bottom. He frowned, he knew what those were for, but really wished they wouldn't be needed at all in the future. He decided to return to his dorms, where, just as Commander Taylor said, there was a small manual on his bed. Mathias closed the door and changed into more casual clothes as he picked up the book and flopped on his bed. He turned on a nearby light as he skimmed through the book. Not even five minutes later, he gently tossed the book to a nearby table. Everything in the manual was basically what he had learned several months prior. He looked at the time from a nearby digital clock, 9:38 GST. Mathias yawned as he got up from his bed and went into his bathroom, brushed his teeth, made sure everything else in his room was taken care of, then flopped back onto the bed. He buried himself into his covers before falling into a deep sleep in a matter of minutes.

* * *

_1st person perspective of Mathias_

An annoying sound blared into my ears as I woke up from the dream land, I groaned as I smacked my alarm button to shut it up. I sat up groggily, rubbing my eyes before a powerful yawn emerged. I glanced at the time, 5:30 AM GST, my usual wake up time, or at least the one I got used to from being in the military for a while. I slowly rotated my body and hopped off the bed, and made it into the showers. The water was hotter than usual, which was fine by me, I love the heat more than the cold. I guess I was just born that way. The moment I stepped foot out of the shower, a cold wave of air brushed past my body. I shivered while I grabbed a nearby towel and dried myself off. I wrapped the towel around my waist as I walked over to my mirror and looked at myself. I was a mess, and my long, blue hair felt like pins and needles on my shoulders. I brushed my teeth and wrapped my hair in a small ponytail, tying it with a band before fiddling around with the sides and front of my hair. Walking out of my bathroom, I opened my closet to see my uniform when a loud alarm blared around me, followed by a girl's staticy voice coming from an internal speaker.

" **ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ALL HANDS GO TO COMBAT READINESS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! ALL FIGHTER PILOTS PROCEED TO YOUR FIGHTERS AND LAUNCH IMMEDIATELY!"**

Quickly snatching my pilot uniform, I rushed back in my bathroom, changed, and rushed out without a moment's hesitation. I ran through the halls, seeing multiple other pilots as well as other personnel, darting through the hallways. My comms device began to blare a loud sound, so I answered it as I ran through the hallways.  
  
"Anderson! Where are you?! Aigaion Squadron is about to launch!" Commander Taylor bellowed through the comms. I cringed a little from the intensity from his voice. That was one of the few times he raised his voice like that at me.

"I just finished my morning routines as the alarms sound, I'm on my way to hangar bay 1!" I responded as I neared the entrance, "now, what's going on?!"

"A massive Zentraedi fleet has been detected ahead of us. The Minmay tactic failed, so the usage of Reactive Weaponry has been authorized. Your fighter has already been equipped with them, now hurry up and get into your fighter!" He yelled as closed the transmission.

I slowed down slightly. Reactive Weaponry, the one thing I didn't want to happen, happened. I dashed into my hanger, my fighter was indeed loaded with 4 reactive missiles. I frowned at the sight of the destructive weapons as I hopped into the cockpit. I closed the cockpit hatch as I put on my helmet. I flicked a few buttons as my fighter roared to life. I smiled as I slowly moved my fighter into a catapult system.

"Aigaion 2, you are cleared for launch!" The voice of that girl from earlier came through my helmet.

"Roger, Aigaion 2, launching!" I shouted as I pushed the throttle forward. The fighter was so new to me, I didn't realize the amount of force it would press on me as I launched. I was thrusted back into my seat as my fighter took off into space. I looked back to see the Macross class ship, as well as its surrounding vessels, prepare to fight. Looking forward again, I could see about 2 dozen Zentraedi ships slowly approaching our lines.

"Well, look who decided to join us, mr. late boy," I hear Angela joke as she flew behind my wing. Moments later, the rest of the squad appeared all around me, with Commander Taylor out in front, wedge formation. I was behind him on his right side.

"Cut the chatter, Aigaion 3. We have a battle to win," Commander Taylor said through the comms, "now listen up. Pay attention to your left." I looked to my left to see something I've never seen in space before at all. It was a swirling vortex in space, no light on the other side. There were teal like clouds around it that were being sucked up into the darkness. I was terrified the moment I laid eyes upon the vortex. "That is a dimensional rift in space and time. There are several in this area alone, however, sensors were not able to detect them right away. Stay away from them, or you will be pulled in. At best, you will end up in another place, at worst, you will die." I stared in awe after Commander Taylor finished his sentence. _'Could these things be responsible for the disappearance of the S.D.F-2?'_

"Enemy Battle pods detected at T-Vector niner!" The girl from before came back again. Facing forward, indeed, my scanners detected numerous Zentraedi battle pods approaching our lines. "Macross Garrison to all fighters, all units engage!" That's when all hell broke loose. 

Missiles, bullets and lasers began to fly all round us as we dodged and weaved with our fighters. Zentraedi Battle Pods closed in on everyone as firefights began. Behind the battle pods, we can see the massive Zentraedi battleships slowly approaching our lines. I chased after multiple battle pods with my fighter, gunning them down and watching them explode into a ball of fire and debris. That's when my scanner pinged an alert, I had six pods closing in from behind. I smirked as they came closer to my fighter, their weapons fire darting around me,  
  
"Alright! Let's see how they like my new fighter!" I flipped a lever and the fighter instantly went into GERWALK mode as they came close, my twin gun pods mounted on my arms. Pressing on the petals and pulling back the controls, My fighter zoomed out behind the approaching Battle Pods, and I unleashed pure fury upon them. I lit them up with the twin mounted machine gun pods. One by one, those pods exploded into dust in less than 3 seconds. I smirked as the last one exploded, this WAS an upgrade indeed!

A whistle came from Jeremy, "not bad, hot shot!"

"Nice job with your new fighter, but keep in mind your last maneuver placed you dangerously close to the singularity behind you," Commander Taylor's face appeared in my hud, his face slightly concerned. My eyes widened as I turned my fighter around. The singularity encompassed my entire field of view. He was right, this WAS too close!

"O-Oh, shit..." I muttered to myself, "this thing is super scary up close and personal."

The girl from before came back on the comms, but this time I can see her face on my screen. She had brown, long hair that just flowed down her body, emerald green eyes and a tan skin tone. "All units, now preparing to fire the Macross Cannon at trajectory X12 Y34, all units in that trajectory bail out from those coordinates immediately!" I changed to Battloid and looked to see the Macross finish transforming into its assault mode. Its giant cannons lowered down from its shoulders and pointed at a section of the Zentraedi fleet, orange bolts began to shoot around between the two cannons. Moments later, a brilliant orange flash, followed by an orange beam of pure energy shot forward, completely decimating a section of the enemy fleet as well as numerous enemy battle pods. Large explosions could be seen from the orange beam, as well as when it dissipated into nothing. 1/3 of the enemy fleet, gone in one shot.

"Wow..." was all I could muster, still stunned from the display of power from the Macross. That was the first time I saw a Macross Cannon fire in person. I was totally lost at its amazement.

"-son, MOVE!" Commander Taylor's voice suddenly brought me back to reality.

"H-Huh? What's wro-," Commander Taylor's battroid suddenly pushed mine, not towards the singularity, but just a push away from something. I recoiled in my seat, why did he do that? A red laser bolt suddenly pierced through Commander Taylor's fighter, right in the abdomen of his Battroid. His fighter recoiled before exploding right in front of me. My eyes widen in pure fear, shock, anger... so many emotions ran through my bloodstream all at the same time. "...no... _no..._ **NOOOO!!** " I screamed as I slammed my fist into a panel, not breaking it, but just enough to make a noticeable thud. My breath became shaky, as well as my hands. Tears formed in my eyes, as they fell onto the glass of my helmet.

"Gunsight Alpha to Aigaion 2, what's happening out there?" The girl came back from before, then noticed my distraught face, "Aigaion 2, what happened out there?!" I couldn't speak. A ringing came into my ears, as my mind began to push out everything around me, leaving me in my own thoughts. My mind was still processing all that happened. Another person I was close to... gone... just like that. My mother... my father... my mentor... dead... why must everyone I am close to DIE!? A ringing came into my ears, as my mind began to push out everything around me, leaving me in my own thoughts. The girl's shouts were just muffles from the ringing. I could see her screaming at me to get my attention, occasionally yelling at someone behind her before returning her focus to me. The ringing in my ear slowly subsided, as her voice became more audible, "- to Aigaion 2, COME IN! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED OUT THERE?!"

I was stuttering, my voice was hoarse, "C... Commander Taylor... is dead..."

The girl's face dropped slightly, "oh... I see..." she took a moment, taking a breath in and exhaling before continuing, "continue with engaging the remnants of the enemy fleet. As of now, you will be moved to the position of Aigaion 1 and will assume command in Commander Taylor's place. Congratulations for the field promotion to squad leader, I wish it was under much better circumstances." Her transmission ended as I sighed. A cruel twist of fate... As much as I wanted to just stop all together, Commander Taylor would have wanted me to continue on with the mission. I gripped my controls, only for an alert to appear, a missile alert! My eyes looked to my left to see a barrage of missiles on their way to kill me. Wasting no time, I moved the controls to activate the pinpoint barriers and deflect the missiles. They exploded as they made contact to the green translucent discs, but they were draining their energy fast. Sweat dripped from my head as I watched the numbers drop to zero, and a missile exploding only several meters from the cockpit, throwing my craft backwards towards the singularity. My helmet slammed into the panels with unrelenting force. My world around me became a blur as the last thing I saw was the Macross charging the fleet with unrelenting fury before my world went black.

* * *

Everything hurts, my head, my arms, my chest. That's what I first woke up to, high soaring pain all around my body. I groaned as I opened my eyes and slowly shook my head from dizziness, my vision was still a blur.

_'What happened..?'_ I thought to myself as my vision slowly started to return to normal. Looking around, I could see slightly damaged panels all around me, and the huds on both my helmet and front view monitor pulsing a red light and exclamation point. When my vision cleared, that's when my memories came back. The battle, the singularity, ...Commander Taylor, The Macross, I remembered everything. Springing into action I immediately looked all around me to see if the battle was still raging on, but... nothing. There was _nothing_ around me. No singularity, no debris, no ships, no asteroids, nothing.  
  
"What... where is the Macross?! Where is the battle?! MY TEAM!" My mind was racing as I scanned the entire area. Sweat dropped from my cheeks as the scanner picked up nothing in range. I tried it again, hoping that it was malfunctioning. Still, the results were Negative; no debris detected, no ships, no U.N Spacy, Chaos nor Zentraedi signals. Then, I tried to move my fighter, but there was no response.

"The hell?" I said as I tried to move the throttle one more time. I pushed down at the pedals below, but the same thing, no response. Are the engines dead? I tried this time to change modes from Battloid to Fighter, which surprisingly worked as I felt the parts around me transform almost instantaneously. At least my fighter was still operational. I decided to do an internal scan of my fighter, see what was broken, damaged or operational. It took a few seconds for it to finish, but once it finished, the data was relayed to my helmet and I began to read the damage reports.

"Let's see... what's still operational besides the transformation systems... life support, short range transmissions, distress signals, short range scanners, EX-GEAR systems, Weapons and the pinpoint barriers. Not a great list, but much better than anticipation. I might be able to repair the engines, but I'll need to see the damage first before I can make any assumptions," I said to myself as I pressed a button and activated the EX-GEAR system. I felt it surround my suit and helmet, tightening its grip on my body to keep it from falling through. I opened the cockpit, hearing a hiss of it depressurizing, and floated out of the cockpit. I looked around momentarily to see if the scanners were broken and if there was really something nearby. True to what the scanners picked up, there was only the void of space and the distant twinkle of stars to keep me company. I turned around to look at my fighter. She was a little roughed up, but still in good shape. I noticed the reactive weaponry was still notched onto the armor, which was both a relief and a disappointment. I didn't like them, but it's much better than them falling into enemy hands or detonating on me. I floated towards the afterburners and engines, using the EX-GEAR system to propel me slightly. I grabbed an edge of my fighter as I looked towards the engines. They were damaged, but I might be able to do something about them. Not to mention if I can get the M.M.D Boosters up and running again, that could add in my favor. I need to make a plan first...

"A distress call! That's right! Maybe a nearby ship will see and help me out here!" I say as I floated back to the cockpit and closed it once again. I could hear a sizzling sound come in, saying that the cabin was repressurized, but I kept my helmet on just to be sure. I flicked a few buttons, before shouting, "Mayday, Mayday! This is 1st Lieutenant Mathias Hunter Anderson of Aigaion Squadron calling any U.N Spacy forces within the area! My fighter is stranded and is inoperable. I repeat, this is Aigaion 1 of the U.N Spacy's S.D.F.N-12 Macross Garrison, calling any friendly forces, I am stranded and need immediate assistance!" I kept repeating the phrase before shutting off the comms, "Now all I have to do is hope for a ship to come. In the meantime, I guess I can try to work on the engines."

For about 3 hours, I worked entirely on the engines and M.M.D Boosters while the signal was being broadcasted. After tightening a bolt, I huffed as I could feel sweat forming on my face. It might be ready. I floated back to the cockpit and reclosed the hatch, hearing the sound of the cabin repressurizing. I sat back in my seat, the EX-GEAR returning to standby mode. I took a deep breath as I wrapped my hands around the throttle stick.

"I hope this works," I whispered to myself as I pushed the throttle gently. Nothing. I was about to slam my helmet down in slight frustration when I heard a hum behind me and the engines roaring to life. My face quickly beamed with life as I raised a fist in the air to cheer for my success. No one could keep me from my ways around technology. A noise suddenly caught my attention, as well as a flashing light on a panel. I dropped my eyes down to see a notification on the scanners that something was coming, and that something was a ship.

"Good timing!" I said to myself. Then I noticed another ping on the scanners, another ship was on its way to me. Then a third ping appeared. My expression changed to slight concern, "okay... that's weird." I noticed the transponder signals were not of the U.N Spacy, these were new people coming towards me. That's when I saw three giant, slender, purple ships emerge nearby my fighter. They were intimidating in factor, as I saw a giant cannon mounted on the top of all the ships' structure. These were warships, and by the looks of it, not friendly in the slightest. I started to panic slightly, I didn't want to provoke these guys, but could I do? That's when I noticed some sort of panel on the port side of one of the ships start to glow an eerie pink-purple hybrid. My mind instantly screamed for me to run away. My mind raced as I didn't think, but I instinctively placed a hand on the throttle and pushed it forward. My plane began to power up, but not before the ship fired. I saw a pink beam with black lightning laced in it, striking the back of my plane, but the lightning surged through the fighter. I could feel its power coursing through my body, pain surging throughout my entire nervous system. I screamed in pain before the world abruptly went black.

* * *

Can someone do me a favor? I've been trying to research something for a while now and I've gotten nowhere with it. I don't recall what year Voltron Legendary Defender was set. Some say it was 2037 (which is what I will be going with unless someone can prove to me in canon material the time of year), while others said a preposterous year. IDK, I just want an answer, and the internet didn't provide it this time :/

Hope you enjoy it! Leave a comment and a rating if you enjoyed it!

Oh, and if you were curious, this chapter was 6800 words long.  
  
Please stay safe!


	2. Chapter 2: The Unknown Pilot... from EARTH?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Paladins intercept a distress call, one that Coran or Allura are not familiar with. Upon finding out the cause of the distress beacon, they make a startling discovery about what sent it, and by whom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: Was the first chapter too long? Just curious

Wanna hear some fun facts?

1: The word "Aigaion" comes from the game "Ace Combat 6", and is a powerful carrier, armed to the teeth with cruise missiles and fighters. 2: Macross Garrison was actually supposed to be named Macross Atlas, but I decided against it to avoid confusion.

* * *

_Meanwhile, at the Castle of Lions_ _(3rd Person perspective)_

Pidge groaned as she opened her eyes to her dark, clustered filled room. She sat up from her bed, hearing a small creek below her. She gave out a large yawn while stretching her hands over her head. As she finished her yawn, she dropped both hands back down to her side and threw off the covers. She slowly got out of bed and made it towards her bathroom to shower, brush her teeth and get herself dressed. Today was just a normal day for her, provided that the Galra did not attack or do anything too rash, so she had nothing major planned for the day. Putting on her usual sweater, she walked out of the bathroom feeling refreshed and ready for the day. She had to navigate around her messy, yet organized bedroom, but she eventually made it out of her room. She opened the door and walked out into the hallway, the door closing behind her as she left. She scratched the back of her head, her autumn hair rustling simultaneously.

' _What was on the agenda for today?'_ She thought to herself as she placed a hand on her chin after finishing scratching her head. She needed to still mess with a lot of tech in the lab. She also wanted to mess around with Green a little to boost her performance and maybe extend the duration of the cloaking systems. Her thoughts were interrupted when her stomach then started to growl like a lion. She laughed a little, guess the first thing she was going to do was get some food in her stomach before anything!

"I wonder if Hunk made anything special for…" now that she thought about it, what time _was_ it? She didn't look at it when she left her room. Was it time for breakfast, lunch, or was she late for both of them? There was only one way to find out, she told herself as she made her way into the kitchen. She definitely smelled something good was being prepared, and it didn't smell like lunch. She walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eye, but almost bumping into the wall.

"Morning, Pidge!" A familiar voice rang in her ears. She looked to see Hunk was finishing something and cleaning himself up, "I made some breakfast over there if you would like some!" He gave her his signature genuine smile, which always seems to brighten her mood. He was such a sweet cinnamon roll at times.

"Alright, sounds good," She said softly as she grabbed a plate, and some of his breakfast he made. He made a sort of pancake like cuisine with alien ingredients. She had them before and they were really good. She grabbed a couple of the pancakes as well as some other miscellaneous things, then sat at the table. She wanted to get to work as soon as possible, so she scarfed down everything.

"No need to rush, Pidge!" Hunk gave a small, hefty laugh as he watched her devour the entire dish full of food. In a matter of minutes, there was nothing left but crumbs. He smiled and took the dish from the table, "looks like someone was starving."

Pidge laughed, "yeah, I guess I was. Alright, I'm going to the lab. Cya, Hunk!"

"Bye, Pidge!" Hunk waved as Pidge walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. She felt more uplifted now that her stomach was filled and the mood she was in, she felt unstoppable. She made her way into her makeshift lab in the Green Lion hangar bay, where her lion sat.

Pidge placed a hand on the lion, "hey girl." She could hear her lion give her a small purr in response. She giggled, knowing that Green was watching over her made her smile and safe, then immediately got to work.

For 2 hours, she tinkered away at some newer pieces of technology and some upgrades for her lion. She seemed in the zone, getting so much work done on an upgrade to the cloaking system to extend it's usage. She took the device and was about to enter her lion when alarms started to blare around her, bringing her combat readiness on alert.

"Of all times…" she muttered angrily to herself as she ran back to her desk and dropped the device on the table. She began to sprint down the massive corridors, as Allura's voice came through the comms.

" **Paladins! Come to the bridge, immediately!"** Her voice seemed to be a little panicked, from Pidge's ears. She huffed, _'believe me, I'm going as fast as I can with these stubby little legs...'_ It wasn't a surprise that she was the last one to arrive on the bridge. Everyone was staring at the holographic projection of a star sector, a giant exclamation point marked in a specific area.

"What's going on?!" Pidge asked as he ran next to Shiro and Lance.

"We've intercepted a distress call coming in from the Xaluan Sector. It's faint and distorted, but it's still audible," Allura said, standing on her usual spot when a viewscreen came up. The image that came through was incredibly staticy and damaging. Whoever they were, they were damaged heavily by something, or someone… Pidge could definitely make out that there was someone in the pilot's seat, but just barely. It was impossible to make out anything besides that.

 _ **"-DAY -RSON CA- -N SPACY FOR- -MY FIGHTER IS STR- -IATE ASSISTANCE! -PEAT! THIS IS- -F.N-12- -Y FRIENDLY FORCES IN-!"**_ The voice was so heavily distorted and muffled, no one could really understand it. The message was on repeat, so Allura muted it while she faced the Paladins.

"How long has that signal been relaying?" Keith crossed his arms, his hair slightly ruffled from the movement.

"Based on how distorted it is, it looks like for about a few Varga, but nothing solid," Coran twirled his mustache, "it's also a signal that I do not recognize!"

"Allura, how far away is that signal?" Shiro asked, staring at the distress point on the holographic map.

"It's about 45 Dobashes in the castle, however your lions might make it in less than five," Allura replied.

Shiro faced the rest of the team, "Paladins, to your Lions! We need to rescue that ship before anything bad happens to it!" The 5 humans ran from the bridge and into their hangars after getting on their armor. Pidge still being the last one to make it to her lion, of course. She hopped into the lion and pushed a lever. The lion roared, both figuratively with energy and literally. The lion took off from the hangar and joined the other lions. The castle slowly shrunk in size until it disappeared behind them. The seriousness of the situation drowned out the brilliance of the nearby stars.

"Alright guys, stay sharp. We haven't gotten any information about the Galra movement in this area, but that doesn't mean they aren't here, so keep your eyes sharp," Shiro came through the comms.

Pidge pressed a button on the holographic control panel, "alien vessel, this is the Green Lion of Voltron, we're responding to your distress signal, acknowledge." An eerie static followed after her voice. She tried again, "alien vessel, this is Pidge, Paladin of the Green Lion, come in!" Still nothing… something was definitely wrong here.

Something started to appear in Lance's eyes, "I got eyes on something ahead of," then he saw three massive Galran cruisers, "oh no…" The Paladins arrive just in time to see a very small ship being towed into the hangar bay of a Galra battlecruiser, and the engines of that Galra cruiser humming to life. They slowly turned from their usual dark purple into a light pink.

"It's going to jump into hyperspace!" Pidge screamed.

"Paladins, take out those engines, don't let them escape!" Shiro commanded, a stern look appeared on his face. The lions moved to the engine of the battlecruiser and fired their lasers into the engine block of the ship. The engine exploded, leaving the ship unable to jump away.

"Yeah-ha!" Hunk cheered as the engines exploded. Fighters began to emerge from the hangars and attacked the lions, who immediately dodged the purple laser fire.

"Hunk, Pidge, Lance! Get into that ship and grab the ship and it's pilot! Keith, you and I will hold them off until they make it out! Shiro commanded, laying out a strategy, which everyone gave a "roger" or "gotcha". The Black and Red lions began to repel the enemy fighters while the Green, Blue and Yellow lions assaulted the hangar, tanking larger laser fire as their lion's landed inside. Galra foot soldiers began to pour out of doorways and fire upon the lions, but they had no effect on the lion's armor. _'When will these guys learn..?'_ Pidge thought to herself as she exited her lion through the top hatch on the head. She entered into a firefight between Galra and with Lance and Hunk, both of which took cover behind some cargo crates and returned fire. Pidge ran past them with her Bayard out.

"Pidge, wait!" Lance cried out, reaching his hand out as if that was going to do anything. A near miss retracted his hand back to his weapon as he returned fire. Pidge, using her size, sliced through Galran drone soldiers with ease, all of them underestimated the young Paladin. She was on fire, nothing stopped her as she beat a majority of the drones with ease. As the last drone fell, Pidge locked the doors to prevent reinforcements from entering, earning her a sigh of relief. She turned back to see Lance turn away from her and stared at the ship, but Hunk starry-eyed.

"Wow, Pidge, that was awesome!" Hunk cheered, his face blown away.

"Thanks. Now, let's see about this pilot," she walked up to Lance, who just stared at the ship. He just seemed to stare at it, his face looking blank, confused. She looked up at him, "uuh, Lance?" The explosions of the outside battle, though muffled, still erupted all around them.

"This fighter… it kinda looks like an older Earth designed fighter," Lance spoke out. That one statement hit the other two Paladins hard.

"What?!" Both Hunk and Pidge stared at Lance, then simultaneously glanced at the strange fighter. True to Lance's word, the more they looked at it, the more the two saw the resemblance of an early Earth fighter. It was black and had several dark blue stripes painted onto it. It was bulky, and definitely not anything they've seen before. Pidge assumed the giant plates on it was a bulky armor set for it. Then she saw four massive rockets on the fighter. Were they boosters? She also saw some thruster attached on the wings as well. She then looked back at the seemingly older rockets on top of the fighter. ' _Maybe they were older designed boosters… or warheads..?'  
_  
Lance fires his thrusters to jump on top of the nose of the fighter. The cockpit was almost impossible to see through, but he still planted his face on the glass to look into it. Through the class he could make out the pilot, who was unconscious. They were wearing a helmet, making it impossible to see their face, but they weren't moving. He could barely see the pilot's chest rising and falling, they were alive, that's a good sign. He faced the other two Paladins, "the pilot's out cold, but they're alive."

"Lance, Hunk, Pidge? What's your status? We managed to clear out most of the fighters, but the carriers nearby have open fired on us. How's it looking in there?" Shiro's voice came through the comms.

"We found the fighter, the pilot is unconscious. Shiro, you're not going to believe this, but this fighter, we think it's an older Earth designed fighter!" Lance spoke, his shock appearing in his voice.

"What?!" Shiro and Keith unanimously said in shock.

"What do we do here?" Hunk asked, readying his Bayard when he heard a bang coming from the hangar bay door. The Galra were trying to breach in. The three Paladins rushed back into their lions, prepared to defend the area at all costs.

"Let's take this fighter back to the Castle and get the pilot into a healing pod," Shiro said as his lion entered the massive hangar. The Black Lion gently grabbed the fighter and towed it out of the hangar. The nearby carriers began to fire upon the Black Lion, but he successfully retreated out of the combat zone without taking any damage upon himself or the fighter. The other lions, with the exception of Keith, quickly launched from the hanger and followed suit.

"No sign of pursuit," Keith noted as it was evident they were not being followed. He looked back at the unusual Earth fighter that Shiro gently held in his lion's paws. It wasn't anything he's ever seen before. If it was of Earth design, it wasn't Garrison tech, not unless they changed their systems during their absences, but even then that was not plausible.

"Allura, prep a healing pod. We found the pilot, they are unconscious, but we don't know the extent of their physical or internal damages," Shiro ordered through the comms.

"Copy that, Shiro," Allura responded.

"Did you find anything interesting about that ship?" Coran butted in the conversation.

"We were nearly too late, the Galra almost got them," Hunk returned, which prompted Allura to give an 'I see' and Coran to give a sigh, "but there's more. They captured what we think is some sort of fighter from Earth!"

"From Earth, but that's impossible!" Allura seemed a little surprised, "how can a fighter from your world be all the way out here. From what you told me about your planet, space travel is very limited."

"I guess the only way we'll find out more about this fighter is when the pilot wakes up," Keith remarked. He was right. This pilot holds all the answers to their questions, it only comes down to how cooperable this pilot is. The Paladins soon returned to the Castle, where the Black Lion dropped the fighter in the flight pod hanger bay. The landing gears lowered for the fighter as it touched the ground, giving a slight bounce when the Lion placed it down. Allura was waiting in the room as they landed. She had never seen an Earth Fighter before, so she wanted to inspect it and it's design. A small part of her wish she hadn't, first noticing the 4 giant rockets on top of its heavily armored designs. It was rather old and inferior compared to Altean standards, but that was just her nitpicking it. The other Paladins landed while she was staring into the black and blue fighter. They ran up to the fighter, taking in the same feeling of this fighter was strange. Lance and Keith used their thruster packs while Pidge walked around the fighter, inspecting it thoroughly. Hunk and Shiro remained next to the Altean Princess.

"Pidge, anything you can tell me about this thing?" Shiro asked the small Paladin.

The short hair girl didn't look back, "I'm not sure, but one thing is for certain. This isn't from the Garrison. Not unless the tech was recently changed, but even then, it would be impossible to manufacture this, upgrade it and find it here," she looked at the thrusters, and noted how they were designed to split in two, but why? She also noticed there were some logos under the wings of fighter. It was a red circle with a white diamond-like object in the middle. Not a Garrison logo, that's for sure.

"Okay. Lance, Keith. How's the pilot?" Shiro turned his attention to the two finally getting the glass to open after they struggled to open the cockpit. Lance, a sweatdrop formed on his head, took off the helmet of the pilot. The pilot was human, and had very long yet deep blue hair, which made a ponytail at the end.

"Shiro, the pilot looks like a female and is unconscious. We should probably put her in a healing pod just to be sure she's okay," Keith called back as Lance picked the pilot up bridal style and floated down.

"Alright, let's go to the infirmary and get her in a healing pod," Shiro waved his hand as he took the pilot from Lance's hands, since Lance was having slight difficulty carrying the pilot and he was stronger then the Blue Paladin, and walked down the hallway, the others following suit. Halfway there, Pidge looked up to see Lance messing with his hair and smirking randomly to himself.

"What are you even doing..?" she asked, watching him straightening it out a strand.

He looked down at the small Paladin with a glare, "I'm just brushing up on my lady's charm. In case that pilot falls for me." He smirked as he could envision it in his mind.

The Green Paladin rolled her eyes and scoffed, "whatever, lover boy…". The team soon arrived in the infirmary, where Coran was standing behind a console, waiting for them

"You sure took your time arriving!" Coran twirled his mustache.

"Shush, now, can you scan her for any signs of injuries or infections?" Lance asked as Shiro placed the pilot into the pod, which sealed immediately once he exited. Coran tapped away at the console as he initiated multiple scans. There was a slight pause before the monitor flared up with information. Coran bent down slightly to fully read what the monitor said, while simultaneously squinting at it, before giving a "huh…", his face read that he found something very interesting.

"'Huh', what?" Hunk asked as he looked at the monitor, though he couldn't see what was on it.

"Well, for one thing… the pilot is a male, not a female," Coran stroked his mustache. There was a collective "WHAT…!?" from everyone but him.

Pidge suddenly smirked as she pointed at the Blue Paladin in a both accusing and joking manner, "HAH! Gay!"

Lance flushed red as he glared at the small Paladin, his voice rising in anger, "HEY! HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?! THAT UNIFORM DECEIVED ME!" There were some snickers coming from Hunk and even Keith, Allura looked unamused and Shiro looked annoyed.

Pidge's smile widened. "GAAAAYYYYY!" She snarked, which caused Lance to fume with rage and anger.

" _Enough,_ " Shiro raised his voice to break apart the two before a fight occurred, "Coran, could you please continue?"

Coran nodded as he resumed speaking, "it looks like he appears to only have suffered some slight burns, bumps and bruises. He should be able to leave in 30 of your Earth minutes, but what puzzles me is about his blood, or rather, the genetic structure of it," he seemed fascinated.

"What about it?" Shiro raised an eyebrow. This broke both Lance from giving death glares and Pidge giving smug, evil glares, and face the mustached Altean.

"It would appear that half of his genetic structure is… different. It's the same as his human genes, but it's also… different? I can't explain it at all, and I've run the DNA from every other alien race we have recorded. None match any known blood we have encountered" Coran stroked his chin in confusion, clearly he was fascinated by this.

"Are you saying he's a human-alien hybrid?" Keith asked the Altean.

"It's possible that he is part of a race we have no known information of; that or this pod has a slight malfunction," Coran looked at the puzzled emo Paladin.

"Just another question to add to the growing list," Keith muttered, though it still carried to everyone's ears.

"We'll just have to wait until he awakens, then he will answer our questions," Allura said as she stared at the pilot.

**~ fast forward ~**

The Paladins waited for the timer to end as they stood nearby the pod. They were just chatting amongst themselves when they heard the familiar beep followed by a cold hiss from the pod. It was time for the QnA. The pilot fell from the pod, but Hunk managed to grab the cold, shivering pilot from crashing into the hard floor. The pilot let out a small moan, his eyelids started to flutter. He slowly steadied himself from Hunk's grip as he placed a hand on his head.

"What… what happened..?" He muttered, as he blinked a couple times as looked around the room, "where am I?" That's when he looked at the yellow shirt giant next to him. His eyes shrunk in fear, he yelped as he jumped back from surprise.

"Woah, woah! Easy! Sorry I scared you!" Hunk threw his hands up, trying to reassure the scared pilot.

He took a moment before darting his eyes around to everyone else around the room, "who are you?!" Before anyone had a chance to answer, he suddenly jumped to his feet. "My fighter! Where's my fighter?!" He tried to run out into a hallway, but suddenly hunched over with a hand on his head. He grunted as his face scrunched up from slight discomfort and pain.

"Hey! Easy, easy! You just got out of a healing pod," Hunk tried to stop him by placing his hands on the pilot's shoulders, but that wasn't stopping the pilot from trying to break free from Hunk's grasp.

"Could you tell us who you are, first?" Allura asked politely, in hopes of calming him down.

"I'll explain later, but first, tell me where my fighter is!" The pilot demanded, keeping a stern face.

Shiro took a deep breath and exhaled, then looked at the pilot, "we have it stored in the main flight pod hanger bay. Now, who are you?"

The pilot looked down, as if pondering his next move, then looked back up to Shiro, "could you please take me to my fighter, I'll be able to explain more with some equipment I have there." Shiro nodded and began to walk with the pilot to the hangar bay, the other following suit. As the group walked down the halls, the pilot looked around at the architecture of the ship, muttering something about the designs are 'not like the Macross'. When they entered the hangar bay, the pilot stared at his fighter.

"Man… she's been beaten up…" he said to himself, slightly shaking his head.

"Really, it looks fine to me," Lance butted in, staring intensely at the indeed fine fighter.

"A pilot's sense, I guess," he said as he made his way to the cockpit. He faced the group, "where'd you leave my helmet at?"

"It's still in the cockpit, we took it off to see if you had taken any head damage," Keith pointed to the cockpit.

"Oh, uh… thanks," he nervously nodded as a ladder extended down. He ascended it, and rummaged around the cockpit for something.

"If you're satisfied, we like to ask you some questions now," Shiro implied a little impatiently as the pilot jumped down to the ground with a datapad in his hand. A small thud was created when his feet slammed into the ground.

"Oh, of course!" the pilot gave an embarrassed smile and chuckle as he returned to the Paladins.

"To start us off, who are you?" Shiro asked the first question. The pilot suddenly stood at attention and gave a salute, for whom though, no one knew.

"I am 1st Lieutenant Mathias Hunter Anderson, but you can call me Matt, Hunter or Anderson if you want to. I am the Commander and ace pilot of the 37th Combat squadron, Aigaion Squad and a soldier of the U.N Spacy onboard the Macross Garrison," the pilot, or rather, Mathias stated, dropping his salute. Pidge flinched when he said his name, most noticeably when he said to call him Matt if need be.

The Paladins were confused by what he said. Lance, obviously, was the first to speak up, "the U.N Spacy? What is that, some sort sort of resistance group or something?"

The pilot looked a little confused, but also made note of Lance's attitude, "uh, no. It's the aviation agency that's under the U.N Government…" the pilot noticed he was getting blank stares, "y'know… the one from Earth..?"

Hunk jumped forward in excitement, "Earth? Did you say Earth?! Are you from Earth as well?!"

"Of Course! It's my home planet!" Mathias smirked as he placed a hand on his hip. His blue pony-tailed hair whipped onto his shoulder when he moved.

"Awesome! So how is Earth? Is it still the same?! How's the food?!" Hunk asked rapid fire questions in excitement.

"Well, it's still the same, not much about it has changed, including the food," Mathias replied. The Paladins had relief washed over them, but was suddenly dried away when he continued, "let's see… the U.N Government is still continuing for peace throughout the galaxy, we still have lots of culture from alien races, and the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of alien warships that watch over the Solar System. Why? Something on your mind?" Everyone's jaw dropped in pure disbelief, which Mathias seemed to take notice of. Something wasn't right here.

"Hold up, there are alien _warships_ over Earth?" Keith narrowed his eyes at the commander. Everyone else began to grow increasingly concerned by what the pilot had just said to them.

"Of Course! After we captured the Factory Satellite, we produced a monopoly of ships for our armed forces in a matter of years! The numbers steadily grew over time and now the Earth is completely protected!" Mathias gave a soft smile as he spoke.

"A captured Factory Satellite?" Shiro asked. He doesn't recall any sort of satellite or fleet of alien ships surrounding the Earth. He placed a hand under his chin, _'nothing like what this person is saying is coinciding with what we know of Earth… '_

The pilot noticed something was amiss when he saw Shiro's face, "yeah, the factory satellite captured in the early 2010's… that's… strange… I thought you would..?" He paused for a moment, looking down at the ground below them before looking back at the Paladins, "how about we change the subject, I can explain more later."

Shiro nodded in Agreement, and Pidge jumped in, "I've never seen a fighter like this before. Can you tell me a little more about this?"

"My fighter?" the lieutenant asked before looking back upon his plane, then back at the young Paladin, "what would you like to know?"

"What is it? It's clearly an Earth design, yet the complex features and the engineering of it are so mathematically different and intriguing," Pidge continued, seemingly eager to learn more about the unusually designed craft.

The pilot looked back on the fighter, smirking as he did so, "this is the VF-31A Kairos. It's the bleeding edge of fighter designs and technology, with multiple variants made for different scenarios and missions. It's one of the best fighters we have at our disposal. This one here is an armored variant. More powerful, much better armor and protection, and can pack a hell of a punch! You don't want to mess with this thing in combat, that's for sure!"

"What about those giant rockets on top? Are they boosters?" Allura pointed to the 4 giant rockets on top of the fighter.

"Giant rockets… boosters? Are you referring to the M.M.D Packs on the wings or-" he froze as what she pointed to, then looked up at the rockets mounted to the top of the craft, "oh… those…" he looked back at Allura, his face had dropped the smirk and held a serious expression, "those aren't ordinary rockets, they are one of the most dangerous weapons ever created in human history. Just one of these can destroy an enemy dreadnought in a matter of seconds. They are what we call, Reaction Weapons."

"Reaction Weapons? Why do you have those, then?" Shiro asked, he seemed more concerned and untrusting about the conversation at hand. Before Mathias had a chance to answer, an explosion rocked the ship. Mathias fell onto the floor, while the rest of the Paladins were barely able to keep stable from the shaking. Shiro looked around, "what was that?!"

Allura pulled up as holo-projection, and seven massive Galra cruisers appeared on the screen. Her eyes widened, "it's the Galra! They blindsided us while we were here!"

The pilot stared at the holo-screen for a moment, "wait… I remember seeing some of those ships when I was working on fixing the engines on my fighter, they came from hyperspace and when I tried to get away, I was struck by something and everything went black."

"Yeah, they tried to kidnap you, we saved you, and now they're here to attack us!" Hunk shouted.

"Paladins, to your Lions, quickly!" Shiro shouted before running out of the room, the other Paladins following suit.

Mathias sat there, thinking to himself for a moment, then looked up as Allura and Coran were about to leave the room. He outstretched his hand towards them, not moving, "wait!" The two Alteans stopped and looked at the pilot again, the ship shook again, but this time, not as powerful, "let me go out there and fight!"

"Don't be absurd, you just got out of a healing pod, not to mention-," Allura grunted when a third shock nearly knocked her over. Coran went back to running towards the bridge, leaving the Altean and the pilot alone in the hangar.

"I know, and I understand it may be hard to trust me at the moment, but I need to prove to you all that I do not mean harm, and that I have no ill will intentions to you all! Plus, I need to get some revenge after what the Galra tried to do to me!" Mathias slammed his fist into his hand, as if it was another point.

Allura thought about it for a moment, as another shockwave coursed through the ship, she looked up at the pilot, "alright, we'll open the hangar bay doors when we get to the bridge. Give me your datapad," Mathias rushed over to her and gave her the pad, she stared at it for a moment before giving it back, "on second thought… just turn your comms to our frequency," she paused a moment to pull out a small little holopad and handed it to the pilot. It was the comm frequency for the Paladins and the Castle. She suddenly turned around and ran down the halls.

"Roger," Mathias yelled as he took back the pad, as well as the small slip Allura gave him, and ran to his fighter. He smirked as he ran up to the ladder and climbed it. ' _This battle was going to be interesting,'_ he thought to himself.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg_LUg2YD9E>

_Theme: _ _Fire Bomber: Holy Lonely Night begins_

As he jumped into the cockpit and closed the hatch, he grabbed his helmet on the dashboard and put it on his head. He pressed a button which caused the helmet to seemingly vanish, allowing his hair to be exposed while also keeping it on. A technique he learned about from the Windermereans. He turned to the comms unit and began messing with it. It took some time, but eventually he found the right frequency for the Paladins and Allura, who was directing them from what he assumed was the bridge. Simultaneously, the hangar bay doors began to open, as the engines in his fighter came to life once more. The doors were fully open and he readied himself for another battle. "Aigaion 1, launching!" He yelled as he pushed the throttle, causing the fighter to accelerate from the hangar. The landing wheels retracted as he looked back and caught a view of the ship he was on moments earlier. It literally looked like an alien castle, but there were several areas smoking ablaze, indicating they were damaged. As he left the perimeter, a hexagonal shield came around the castle, which was not something he's seen before.

"That's new…" Mathias muttered to himself. Turning his attention forward, he could see five mechanical lions duking it out with four of these 'Galran Ships', he noticed there were 3 destroyed already, so these guys were either good, or the Galra were pathetic. Maybe both…

Mathias watched as multiple fighters he has never seen before flew all around him, firing purple lasers at the lions and the castle. "I'm guessing those are not friendly as well", he grunted as he dodged a volley of laser fire. He looked to his left to see seven fighters chasing the Yellow Lion, and gave way to follow suit.

"Hunk, you got multiple on your tail!" the Blue Paladin spoke through the comms.

"I know, I can't shake them off!" The Yellow Paladin yelled as he tried to climb up to evade them, but that was useless. The fighters began to fire upon the lion, their rounds bouncing off with no effect. He looked over his shoulder to see one of the fighters targeting his lion's head.

"Oh no…" he muttered as he braced for impact. Just as the fighter was preparing to fire, a volley of small, blue bullets pierced through the fighter, as well as the other six behind him. They blew up instantly, leaving only Hunk and the Yellow Lion completely intact. He opened his eyes when nothing happened and watched as the VF-31 zoomed beside him, the blue haired pilot came up on the holo comms.

"You good, big guy?" Mathias asked as he flew past the mechanical Lion.

"Yeah, thanks!" He sighed with relief, giving a thumbs up. Mathias returned the gesture before the screen faded away. Hunk watched as the fighter zoomed away and engaged other fighters with bullets or missiles. Hunk watched how fast Mathias was at engaging and taking down enemies, as well as avoiding weapons fire, but he wasn't the only one.

"Is that Mathias?!" Lance asked, watching the young pilot effortlessly engage the enemy fighters with excellent piloting skills, dodging laser volleys and launching missiles that tore apart squadrons with ease.

"Yeah, and he's really good! He might be better than you, Lance," Pidge smirked under her helmet. She saw Lance's face fluster under his helmet in anger, which she had to resist the urge to laugh.

"Hey, I am an excellent pilot, thank you very much!" He shouted back in anger.

"Watch it, Mathias, You got eleven on your tail!" Shiro shouted to the pilot as eleven Galra fighters were approaching on his tail. They began to fire upon the VF-31, but he did a very aggressive maneuver, dodging the volley of lasers from behind him.

Mathias' face came through on the visual comms, "these guys aren't that good, but check this out!" Mathias began to pull up on the throttle, as his fighter began to climb, when all of a sudden, the thrusters on his fighter swung down from their original position. The thruster had formed legs, while the original shape of the plane's body remained. This caused the fighter to loop behind the Galra fighters, and ready to attack. Then, two arms appeared under the fighter, hands extended and two cannons unfolded on the wrists. The fighter had transformed into something different! Wasting no time, Mathias unleashed hell upon the fighters with the twin machine guns under the fighter's arms, destroying almost all of the fighters in one single attack. Only 1 managed to survive the initial onslaught, but the plane returned to its fighter mode and gave chase. The Paladins watched that unfold in awe.

"No way! Did his plane just transform!?" Lance shouted.

"That is so cool!" Hunk was jaw dropped.

"Now I get why he called it one of the best fighters!" Keith watched the dogfights unfold. Shiro watched the fighter continue its attacks, but his mind wandered again. _'No Earth fighter of today has been shown to do what Mathias' just did. Not to mention, no pilot has the capabilities like he has. Something is definitely not right here… where... or when did he come from..?'_

Pidge was starry-eyed. She had never seen something like this at all! _'That's why the legs were jointed like that!'_ She thought to herself as she watched him fight more. He was chasing more fighters, going to that strange form to engage them when a fighter began to attack from above. She watched as something on top of the fighter began to unfold. A cannon unfolded itself on top of the fighter as it charged up and fired a high powered laser, destroying the fighter in a brilliant ball of fire before it folded back into his fighter and his fighter returned to normal. Her mind began to race in excitement. A fighter being able to transform at command while still retaining the original shape and size. Relative compactness! Not to mention how it could pack and hold so much firepower in it, namely the giant cannon that unfolded on its back. She was imagining all the possible technologies that made everything work, but was rudely interrupted when a blast from a carrier knocked her and the Green Lion back. She screamed out as her Lion began to float in space. She groaned as she tried to get it to move again, but it wouldn't budge. She began to panic as roughly 25 fighters began to approach the helpless Lion.

"PIDGE!" All the Paladins cried out and tried to rush over to their stranded teammate, when Mathias came through again, rushing his fighter forward before the other Paladins had a chance to act.

"I got this, just watch!" He shouted as his fighter transformed again to the second form, it's gun pods out. He moved the fighter in between the Green Lion and the approaching Galra Fighters. Pidge watched as Mathias stood in front of her Lion, only for it to transform again. This time, it turned into a robot, almost instantaneously. She could see the arms, back, legs, and back of the head, it's black and blue color-scheme filling most of her view. Her starry-eyes returned, even brighter this time, if that was possible. The Armor pads on its chest opened to reveal a bay full of missiles. Mathias saw a targeting hud come up, and an eye tracking targeting device activated. His eyes darted around at all the fighters coming in, missiles locked on. He pressed the missile release button on the controls. "EAT THIS!" He screamed as a volley of missiles launched from the fighter and took towards the enemy fighters. They didn't have time to dodged as the volley of missiles struck the planes and exploded instantly, leaving only small pieces of debris. The robot changed back into a fighter and began to charge toward one of the cruisers. The other Lions regrouped around the now reactivating Green Lion.

Shiro watched as the fighter began to charge at one of the nearby battleships. As impressive in firepower and abilities he had, Shiro still feared for Mathias' safety. "Mathias! Fall back, you're getting too close!" Shiro tried to reign in the fighter, which was dodging laser fire from the battleships with ease.

"I'm going to show you why the U.N Spacy is not to be messed with!" Mathias screamed as he grew closer and closer to the ship's hull "FIRE!" He pressed the ignition button on the control stick, as a Reaction Missile suddenly came to life. It charged into the mid hull of the ship, while Mathias pulled back from the large purple ship. The Paladins, Allura, and Coran watched as the missile collided into the cruiser, only for a tick later to explode into a massive ball of destruction. The Galra Ship instantly snapped in two and began to explode. True to Mathias' words, one of those missiles caused hell upon that ship. The other Galran ships suddenly stopped firing, and the remaining fighters returned back to their hangars. The Galran ships immediately jumped into hyperspace, and the battle was over.

_ Theme ends… _

The Fighter transformed into a robot again, and watched as the Galra fled. Mathias gave a small sigh, "That was a tough battle. Everyone alright?"

"Y-Yeah… BUT WHAT THE HELL WAS ALL THAT?!" Lance practically screamed out in pure disbelief.

"Language, Lance," Shiro muttered, but he did have a right to be in disbelief.

"How does your fighter transform like that into a robot?" Lance pointed into the screen.

Mathias gave a small, wholehearted chuckle, for a moment before calming down, "it's a long story, but the form is not called a robot. This mode is called Battroid mode, while this," he paused when the mecha transformed again so it's legs and arms were out, but the body was still that of the fighter, "...is called GERWALK mode."

"How does that even work!?" Pidge was practically squealing, failing to contain her excitement.

Mathias was about to explain in short terms before his stomach growled audibly, which everyone else heard through the comms. He gave an embarrassed laugh as his face slightly flushed red, "I'll explain everything later, but can I please get something to eat? I'm… uh… kinda hungry."

"Alright, let's go eat!" Hunk led the charge back to the castle, with everyone else following suit, Mathias changing back his plane back to fighter mode before following.

"We have a lot to discuss..." Mathias said to himself as they all landed in the castle hangars.

* * *

Allura watched from the bridge as the Lions and Mathias in his fighter returned to the castle. Her head was swiveling with questions, but more so concern. Coran could instantly see it plastered on her face.

"Princess, what's wrong?" Coran asked, concern in his voice.

She shook her head slightly, "it's just…" she paused for a moment, "just seeing that weapon in action. If we had not rescued Mathias when we did and the Galra had taken him. If they had found a way to manufacture those weapons…" she shuddered at the thought of what the Galra might have done with those weapons, not to mention the overall technology of Mathias' fighter.

Coran rested a hand on her shoulder, "you don't have to worry princess. We rescued him before that happened, and things are looking up." she looked at him with a soft smile, before they turned and faced the door to leave the bridge, "come on, princess, let's go to the kitchen, we have a lot to discuss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the second chapter of the installment so far! 
> 
> Stay tuned for more!


	3. Chapter 3: History Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two different Histories collide, as a recap of the Macross timeline is displayed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I write (or I guess, type in this case lol) too long chapters...
> 
> Anyway, here's a more laidback chapter: "History Lesson." This mostly explains the canon story for Macross if anyone hasn't seen it. Also, I didn't feel like writing the entire story for Voltron in a summarized manner, so I just did I time skip lol. You can basically skip this chapter if you already know a major part of the Macross Lore. ALSO! Wattpad viewers will be able to see images for reference when I post this chapter there! Go to Wattpad and check it out if you haven't!
> 
> MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE MACROSS SAGA AHEAD!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

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Within a Galra Command ship, during the battle on the Castle of Lions.

The purple commander watched as a heavy laser struck the castle, his smirk on his purple face was proud. He watched as the shot connected on the bow of the ship and exploded in a brilliant ball of fire, causing major structural damage on the hull. Clearly, they were distracted by something, he had caught them by surprise. He continues to fire upon the defenseless ship until the alarms start to blare, now comes the hard part. Five lions emerged from the hangars of the ship. It was also about that time that the particle barrier system on the Castle came on line. The commander took a deep breath as the space battle began, Galran fighters began an onslaught on the lions, but they proved ineffective. Muffled laser fire could be heard inside the bridge of the command ship.

"Maintain fire on the Castle of Lions, do NOT let them escape!" He barked out, his rough voice shredding the room's silence.

"We've lost a Cruiser!" A Galra below him shouted. The commander watched as not one, but two ships exploded into dust. He growled. A third exploded nearby, rocking his ship slightly and nearly threw him off balance.

"Commander!" the same Galran soldier called out, "another ship has been detected leaving the castle!"

This sparked the commander's interest, another ship? What could they be planning? He pointed to the screen, "show me!" A view monitor pulled up, revealing a small fighter flying towards them at high speeds. "Interesting... it's that fighter we tried to capture earlier," he looked down at the Galran below him, "I want you to analyse this fighter from top to bottom as it fights, record it and watch it's movements. I want to know what we are dealing with." The Galran saluted, while furiously typing on the console. A screen about the fighter came up, watching all of it's moves. They caught the feed just in time as the fighter saved the Yellow Lion from 7 Garla fighters. The weapons and design of that fighter interested the commander. It's able to move that fast and with all that weight and armor on that fighter. This pilot must be skilled, indeed. The fighter blasted through multiple squads with it's laser pellets and missiles, but moments later, a real challenge approached. 11 Galran Fighters managed to flank the bulky, armored fighter. The commander smiled, "let's see if you survive this, pilot..." It dodged a volley of purple lasers before unexplainably it transformed and flew above and behind them. The commander was furious as it destroyed the fighters that tried to ambush it. It then changed back to its original form before chasing a straggler down. He paused for a few moments, processing all he had seen before his mind erupted in fury.

"WHAT. WAS. THAT?!" He bellowed, slamming his fist down on some metal, bending it in the process. He noticed a turret fold on top of the ship, fire a powerful blue beam, then unfold back into a fighter. What else did this pilot have up their sleeves?

"I'm not sure, but we scored a hit on the Green Lion, sir!" another Galran below him replied. The screen shows the Green Lion floating in space, clearly stunned from a direct laser attack.

"Well... Zarkon will love us when we deliver it to him-" he was cut off by the fighter, coming into view from the form he saw earlier, only this time, it transformed again into a much more robotic form. The Commander had a mixed expression of rage, confusion and shock at the same time. It opened a bay full of missiles and fired a volley, destroying multiple squads that were approaching the diabled Lion in a single attack before changing back into a fighter and charging at a nearby Galran ship.

"What is it doing..?" He wondered out loud as it dodged more laser fire. A giant rocket on top of the fighter detached and soared towards the Galra ship it was charging. The fighter broke away from its charge, just one missile couldn't compare to the might of the emp-

His thoughts were interrupted when the missile exploded into one of the largest balls of orange fire and destruction he's ever seen. He was thrown onto the ground from the shockwave. Alarms were blaring louder than he had ever heard them. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" He barked as he struggled to stand up.

"UNKNOWN, SIR!" A soldier replied from below him.

"GET US OUT OF HERE BEFORE THAT FIGHTER MAKES ANOTHER PASS ON US!" He yelled, a mixture of anger and fear engulfed his voice. His orders were followed and the remaining three ships escaped the battle. His fists were shaking, how could this happen?! "Cease all recording and set course for Emperor Zarkon's fleet immediately, he needs to know what has happened. The Galran Empire must be wary of those missiles and the pilot behind its controls."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back at the castle, present time; Mathias' 1st PoV

I held a very... questionable look on my face as I examined the plate of green space goo in front of me. I hesitantly picked up a utensil and looked at the Paladins and the two other aliens with them.

"Are... are you guys sure this stuff is even edible???" I asked as I poked the goo with the end of the utensil in hand, a look of concern and very slight distrust plastered itself on my face.

"Yeah, and trust me, it's bad at first, but it gets better the more you eat it," the giant, yellow shirt man, which I believe is Hunk when I listened in on the comms from earlier today's battle, responded. The others seem eager about me trying out the food, or possibly my reaction.

I hesitantly took a small scoop of the green space goo and took a bite. A sour flavor flushed my taste buds. My face immediately scrunched up as I swallowed, an expression of cringe followed. I gave a groan of disgust as the others around seem to laugh softly in amusement from my suffering. 'For once in my life, I actually miss the mess hall food in the Macross.' I don't really know why, but I went in, even more hesitant, for a second bite. The second time around wasn't horrible, in fact, it was better. I swallowed the second bite before nodding slightly, "alright... first time, totally horrible, but the second taste is much better, like you said." I continue to chomp away, but still in a polite manner, at the food presented before you.

"Now that you have something to eat, mind if we ask you some questions?" The bulky man with the mechanical arm chimed in, his serious, yet calm demeanor was reminiscent to Commander Talyor, but I guess he was much more... formal.

I pointed my utensil at the man, and everyone around, "now, hold on a sec. I told you some things earlier, and yet I don't know anything about you or even your names. Shouldn't we introduce ourselves first?" I pause a sec to point at the larger man wearing a yellow shirt, "except you, I think you're called 'Hunk' if I am not mistaken," then I point to the mustached alien, "and you're Coran, I think."

"Right you are!" Coran twirled his mustache in the background.

"I suppose introductions are in order, so you can be acquainted with everyone here," the alien woman kindly spoke out.

The man with the mechanical arm stepped forward, "my name is Shiro, I am the Paladin of the Black Lion" he pointed to a Cuban wearing a jacket, who had a smug expression on his face, "this is Lance."

"Yo, I'm Lance, resident cool dude and sharpshooter, pilot of the Blue Lion," Lance seemed to be flexing about himself. He somehow grew an even more smug look on his face, as if that was adding to his overall coolness factor.

"Umm... hi..." I felt a little unsure about Lance, he seemed more like an egotistical goofball than anything at first glance.

Shiro then pointed to an emo looking guy wearing a red jacket with interesting designs on it, "this is Keith, he's our expert fighter and is the pilot of the Red Lion." Keith only seemed to give me a nod, which I returned. He definitely seemed emo in my eyes. Shiro then pointed to Hunk, "this is Hunk. He's our resident cook and pilot's the Yellow Lion."

"Hey," he said as he waved to you. I smiled and waved back, he seemed really nice, judging by his kind voice.

Shiro pointed downward to the smallest of the group, "this is Pidge and the pilot of the Green Lion. She's our resident tech expert of our group, and I have no doubt she will have a lot of questions to ask you about your fighter's technology when this is over." She looked up at him with a look that said, 'you're not wrong, but shush.' Was her cheeks a little red? Maybe she's just mad at him for saying that out loud, which prompted a small chuckle from me.

"That's fine, I can answer any questions about my fighter whenever you like," I smiled, in which the small Paladin looked at me with an excited look. I chuckled lightly as Shiro moved on.

"Coran is our resident... Altean guide to most of our adventures. He knows most of his surroundings quite well and... helps us out in certain times," Shiro seemed to ponder on how to put things, which Coran immediately went off on Shiro, seemingly in frustration. Everyone in the room, including me, laughed as Shiro quickly moved on from the frustrated Atlean, who quickly calmed down, but was still a little upset. He finally approached the Altean lady with a kind demeanor, "Allura is the Princess of Altea, and she is one who controls the Castle of Lions when we go to battle. She's like our negotiator, in a way."

"It's so nice to meet you," she gave a small bow, smiling.

"Likewise," I returned, then you looked back at Shiro, "one more thing. I know you want my past and history, but I want to know your side of the story. There's something amiss here and I don't know what."

"The full story or..?" Coran asked, dropping his crossed arms to his side.

"Everything. I mean, I have time, so I want to know everything!" I say as I finish the plate.

"Very well, we'll start from the beginning, but I'll give you a smaller rundown of it just in case. You can ask questions whenever you want to," Coran said, which you nodded. He took a deep breath and began to speak.

Over the course of the next 15 minutes, the mustached Altean explained the history of Altea, Origins of this 'Voltron', and the Galran Empire. Coran explained that the Paladins of Voltron are the only ones who can stop the Galran Leader, Zarkon, and his subordinates. Coran explained that the 5 lions when conjoined, can form the ultimate weapon to defeat Zarkon, but it can also be very destructive if it falls into the wrong hands. I definitely wanted to see this Voltron in action. The other Paladins also spoke up about Earth and how they were involved in this, but I noted that there was so much wrong about Earth. No S.D.F-1 Macross crashing on the Earth? No Protoculture? What is going on here..?

As they finished, I placed my hand together and took a deep breath, "so... let me get this straight. Voltron is a weapon formed by 5 lions and 5 Paladins bonding to each other, the Galran Empire have most of the universe in their clutches, this Castle is a ship and Earth has 'Galaxy Garrison'?"

"That sums it up," Keith replied, noting my facial expression of confusion.

"This doesn't make any sense! I lived on Earth for a while and studied its history thoroughly, and no mention of a Galaxy Garrison existed. My historical textbook from 2070 can prove it!" I practically shouted with so much confusion. I immediately noted that their facial expressions, well, the Paladin's anyway, had changed to shock. I stared at them blankly, "...what?"

"Did you say 2070?!" Hunk waved his hands as if swatting something in his face.

"Umm... yeah? That's the year, isn't it?" I asked, the feeling of a dumb question settled within me.

"This may sound crazy... but the year is 2037," Shiro responded. My face and jaw dropped, the utensil falling out of my now opening hands.

"...what..!?" I jumped up from my seat, "but that's impossible! How?!" I then recalled something, the battle against the Zentraedi, and the unstable singularity that stood nearby. "Wait, the singularity!"

"Singularity?" everyone asked simultaneously.

"Before I sent out the distress beacon, I was in a battle against an alien race called the Zentraedi, and there was an unstable singularity, a dimensional rift on the battlefield. My fleet, we were fighting against them when my commander," you slowly looked down, sadness filled your heart, "...and friend... died in front of me. I was thrusted in by a missile barrage and passed out. The next thing I know, I woke up to my fighter's systems going haywire, I'm alone. No debris from my ships or Zentraedi, no planets, nothing," I said, slightly mourning the loss of Commander Taylor.

Pidge and Allura started to piece two and two together, that's when Pidge spoke, "if that is true, then that means you're not from here, our reality. You were thrown through realities and now you here. That's why our histories aren't connecting. That singularity was a wormhole to another dimension, another universe maybe!"

I stared her down in disbelief. Her theory was sound, and it does make sense. It's not that I didn't believe her, it was just hard to wrap my head around. My mouth quivered a little, "...it can't be..." I fell to your knees. This was not how things were supposed to go. The Paladins rushed to me and tried their best to comfort me, which I admit, did make me feel slightly better, but only slightly. I didn't cry, but the intense sadness in my heart just kept burning like a rampaging fire. I slowly stood up, the others slightly backing away to give me space. "I think it's time I talk about my universe and my story. If that's okay to you all?"

"Yeah, I want to hear about this alternate Earth!" Hunk was pumped to hear about this story. Everyone seemed to have a similar expression written on their faces.

I smiled as you sat down back at my seat, "alright... I'll tell you the tale of my universe. Let's see... ah! I know where to start!" I cleared my throat and began to speak. I grabbed a datapad that I took with me into the kitchen and turned it on.

~

"Long ago, roughly about 500,000 years ago, there was a race that thrived throughout the stars. They were the first humanoid race in the galaxy to develop culture. Thus, they called themselves ' the Protoculture'. There's not a lot of pictures available, so I'll only display a projection of old ruins that we found on different planets," I pressed a button on the datapad, and holographic images of older ruins projected overhead. They were very circular and heavily designed, but still damaged. Everyone else was intrigued by the ruins' designs. 

"Over the years, their culture expanded from architecture, to technology and even music! Keep music in mind, it will be important later. They built one of the earliest humanoid races in our galaxy, which we call the Zentraedi, a race of giants." Images of the Zentraedi people came up, they were warlike in the images, wearing military outfits. 

"For a while, the galaxy was at peace, well... it was until the Protodeviln came." Images of the terrifying Protodeviln appeared (A/N: images would be from Macross 7, nothing made up), and the others stared down their terrifying designs and abilities. 

"Beings from a different dimension evaded our galaxy, our universe. They corrupted a fraction of Zentraedi as well as some of the Protoculture, so war erupted between the two factions. The Protodeviln, with their brainwashed soldiers, established the Supervision Army to combat the Protoculture, who used their Zentraedi as their own soldiers as well. The war was harsh, but in the end, the Protoculture used something called 'Anima Spiritia' to seal the Protodeviln away into a deep slumber. However, the Supervision army and the Zentraedi continued to be locked in conflict to this very day. The dramatic irony of this: The Protoculture released the Zentraedi in order to let them fight more freely, which made them more belligerent and nearly wiped out the last of the Protoculture. Only a handful of the Protoculture survived, and those that did sought shelter in distant planets in our galaxy before they too were gone. Apparently, some had even landed on Earth before they vanished. The Supervision Army and the Zentraedi, who believed the Protoculture was annihilated, continued to war throughout the galaxy. Before the Protoculture's flame was extinguished, they developed other subspecies, that included Humans, Voldorians, Ragnans, Windermereans and Zolans." Images of each species appeared on the holographic projections. What caught the Paladin's eyes were the Windermereans, they looked exactly like humans.

"What's so special about the Windermereans?" Keith asked.

"Windermereans have runes in their hairs, as seen here," I enhanced the image of a Windmerean's rune, "they have the ability to sense bio-fold waves and have fold receptors. Not to mention the fact they have superhuman speed and strength. The only downside is their age. They can only live about 30 years. Very strong warriors and damn good pilots." I got a glare from Shiro, which I muttered "Sorry".

"Bio-fold waves?" Shiro questioned.

"It's... hard to explain... anyway, back to the story!" I said, putting myself back on track, "anyway, despite the Supervision Army and Zentraedi battles throughout the galaxy, all was still until 1999 AD, an alien object crashed onto the surface of the Earth." A hologram displayed in a motion picture as a meter-like object crashed into an island's surface. When the dust cleared around it, a ginormous alien battleship revealed itself. 

"This ship belonged to the Supervision Army, and was a battleship, but by no means the largest they had! When the world saw this, they unified to one organization, the U.N Government. It took a while, and one massive war, to finally unify the world, but global peace soon existed. Soon, the alien ship was restored, and over the span of 10 years, technology developed, and we gained new fighters, starships, everything! That's when we reformed the alien ship... into this!" An image of numerous fighters, a few starships and some miscellaneous items appeared, but the one that really caught everyones' eye was a giant battlefortress with two aircraft carriers for arms, two humongous guns on its back shoulders. 

Everyone else in the room was beyond awestruck at the sight of the giant battle fortress. Allura looked really frightened, but was still trying to hide it. I wondered why she looked frightened, after all, these were just holograms.

"Holy moly! That thing is monstrous!" Lance shouted.

"How big is that ship?" Hunk asked, staring into the cannons on top.

"Well... let's see," I twirled around my free hand trying to add the numbers, "about 4,000 feet high." Somehow, everyone's jaw was even more dropped, all except Pidge. She seemed so incredibly fascinated by it all in general. Shiro was right, she really is interested in my world's technology. "Best part about this, it's also transformable!" I say as another image of the battlefortress appeared in cruiser mode. "It utilizes its cruiser mode to travel between star sectors in hours using Fold Technology."

"HOW DOES IT DO IT?!" Pidge exclaimed in pure excitement, leaving Lance to snicker at her excitement, which earned him a death stare from the youngest Paladin.

I laughed, "how about this: I can give you a manual on everything later, after I finish this story, okay?" She eagerly nodded. I chuckled lightly, then continued on with the story, "This ship became the first human ship capable of Fold Traveling, though it was still very... primitive compared to our modern versions. We called this ship the S.D.F-1 Macross. Unfortunately, the Zentraedi learned of its whereabouts and began an assault on the Earth and the Macross. This would later be called 'Space War 1'. The Macross initiated a hyperspace fold jump, aimed at the opposite side of the moon. Unfortunately, the crew of the Macross folded too close to the surface, as it took an island, a chunk of ocean water and 2 aircraft carriers along with it. Instead of materializing near the moon, the fold shot them to the far edges of Pluto! Not only that, but the fold drive vanished, taking with it vital components for the Macross' main cannon. This development would later lead to the introduction of the pinpoint particle barrier system, or the pinpoint barrier for short. This defence mechanism was a basically a small shield that traversed the body of the ship and could protect it from any and almost all damage, though it still had some weaknesses. The Macross would later rescue the survivors of the island and set course for home. Long story short, a city was built in the Macross for the civilians and it took them months to get back home. Upon returning home, the crew believed they would be welcome with open arms... well... they weren't, and the civilians were not allowed to return home, as the government had declared all of the civilians dead. The Macross was ordered back to space, and barred from coming to Earth, as the Zentraedi was only interested in the Macross. The Macross would later make peace with the Zentraedi fleet that originally fought them, thanks to a surprising factor: music. Music and culture was what brought the Zentraedi to its knees, and sought out peace. All thanks to one songstress, Lynn Minmay. Everything was going well, that was... until the main Zentraedi fleet folded all around the surface of the Earth." I paused to show a couple of images of millions of green ships surrounding the planet, frightening the Paladins, but surprised the Alteans. There was also an image of Lynn Minmay, but none paid attention to her as much as the fleet.

"How many ships are there surrounding the planet?" Allura asked.

"Based upon past reports, there were numbers of about 4.8 million ships, including a Zentraedi command vessel. It's literally the size of a dwarf planet!" I exclaimed, which prompted a horrified murmur from the Paladins.

"These Zentraedi are just like the Galra. Ruthless and in vast quantities," Allura said to herself.

"That's when the most disastrous event in human history occurred: ...the Zentraedi holocaust." At that moment, the display showed the Zentraedi ships firing upon the Earth with relentless fury. The Paladins stared in shock and disbelief as the surface of the Earth was leveled into nothingness. The clouds were all but nonexistent, the green fields were replaced by brown plateaus of dirt and debris. "The Zentraedi destroyed all of the Earth and its defences in less than 5 minutes. The only people to have survived were everyone on the Macross and a handful of survivors on the surface. The Macross, along with the culture converted Zentraedi fleet and the power of song, took to the ultimate battle for Earth. In the end, the Macross, heavily damaged, returned to the broken planet, victorious. Over the next couple of years, peace with the Zentraedi was... fragile, to say the least, but it still existed. Technology advanced when an elite team of fighters captured a Zentraedi Factory Satellite. A factory that produced ships completely autonomously. The Captain of the Macross, Admiral Global, thought that capturing the satellite would boost the Earth's defences. Nothing really happened until the Battle of Macross City began. One rogue Zentraedi commander by the name of Kamujin had caused mischief before, attacked the Macross with a salvaged gunboat. The Macross was almost destroyed from a suicide ram attack from the guboat, but only the right arm needing replacing and the engines on the chest needed repaired. Otherwise, the Macross was still intact. Over time, the Macross was refitted with new arms, better technologies, and a new paint job. We later sent the next vessel to traverse the stars and colonize them, we called this vessel 'The Megaroad' class vessel, this one in particular is the S.D.F-2 Megaroad 1," an image of the S.D.F-2 appeared. The Paladins could see a city built inside the translucent walls of the ship.

The Paladins could see a city built inside the translucent walls of the ship

"The S.D.F-2 was originally was supposed to be a replica of the S.D.F-1, but when the Zentraedi holocaust came through, plans changed, and it eventually became the first colony vessel. It was launched in 2012, along with a fleet of Zentraedi ships with the aim of colonizing the stars and traveling to the center of the galaxy. We... lost contact with the Megaroad 1 in 2016. We still don't know why, but I'll tell you more later. Over the span of 30 years, new ships began to emerge, and the Macross class vessel was mass produced, code named: the S.D.F.N class ships. They are near exact replicas of the Macross, but because they were built from medium type Zentraedi ships, their armaments differed with each ship." I took a break to take a sip of water, then pulled up my ship, the S.D.F.N-12.

"Look at the arms, why are they different?" Keith asked.

"Those are ARMD Carriers. They are fighter carriers that are docked to the Macross to make arms. They are technically the oldest ship still in service in the U.N Spacy, I guess..." I replied.

"Besides the carriers, there's nothing different from the others to the original Macross?" Pidge asked.

"Sort of. The functionality and overall quality was the same, but each ship was different in its own way because they utilized engines from medium sized Zentraedi ships. Thus, their armaments verified from ship to ship. The one I served on was called Macross Garrison, or the S.D.F.N-12. The Garrison, in my time, is armed with the most modern defensive weaponry and fighters, quite powerful if you ask me," I explained as I shift my position in my seat, "any questions so far?"

"How heavily armed are those Megaroad class vessels? They don't seem very well equipped for a fight," Coran asked, inspecting the holographic photo of the Megaroad ship.

"Good question. You see those two platforms? They're also ARMD Carriers. They can hold a number of fighters to defend the Megaroad from danger. In terms of armaments however, they aren't armed with a Macross cannon like the Macross class vessels. They only have minimal anti-aircraft armaments, and are minimally armored. One good shot can destroy the entire ship. Of course, they have escort ships as well, so they aren't alone," I explain, pointing to the docked ships and the center of the hollow vessel, "anything else?"

"How powerful is this Macross cannon you speak of?" Shiro asked as I flipped the images to the Macross class vessels.

"Another good question, but fairly straight forward. The Macross cannon is powered by Overtechnology, a type of tech that even I can't comprehend. It's far more powerful than anything. A well placed shot can destroy possibly a hundred ships, and its range is extensive!" I exclaim. Allura seemed to shudder by that statement, which led me to raise an eyebrow slightly. 'Is she afraid of these ships, or something else about them?'

Pidge looked up to the stoic Paladin, "we could use something like that, then we can beat Zarkon before he causes more terror across the universe."

"I don't think that is even remotely possible. The Garrison was far away from the singularity, I was the only fighter, at least I think I was, to pass through it relatively unscathed," I shook my head, "let's continue with the story." Everyone else nodded.

"Over the years, technology grew as new Earth ships began to appear, Zentraedi and Humans began to integrate, and life was normal. We even built a new ship to replace the older, more vulnerable Megaroad class ships. We called it the New Macross class. A combination of two ships into one! Not to mention better escort ships as well," Multiple images of a giant disk shaped ship with a protective dome around it appeared, as well as a giant mech with a large gun in its hands. 

"Trust me when I say these are much better than Megaroads. The mech you see here is called a Battle Class. Their cannon is basically the same output as on the Macross class. These came in around 2030, and showed great promise. The dome ship is called a City Class ship, and has a unique dome to cover the city within for defence! Not to mention it can hold way more people than the Megaroad could! This one here is called Macross 7, it will be important in a second. Anyway. for a long time, all was well on Earth until 2040, when the Sharon Apple incident came to light." A projection of a holographic female singer appeared before everyone. 

Lance seemed to be attracted to her almost immediately, which I rolled my eyes to, "Sharon Apple is an artificial construct, built as an AI singer. She wowed the audience with her songs. However, the program became unstable and she soon gained sentience. She hypnotized almost everyone on Earth and hijacked the Earth's defence network, and caused the Macross to lift off from the lake it's rested in since 2010."

"It took 1 brash pilot to destroy Sharon for good before she took over the world. I'll go ahead and skip the minor bits and go to the next major thing, since it was only 5 years later: the return of the Protodeviln. Macross 7, a New Macross class ship under the command of Maximillain Jenius, a Space War 1 Veteran, encountered the transdimensional beings once again in 2045. Barely any weapons we had at the time barely even hurt the Protodeviln, not even Reaction Weaponry cut through them. The only thing that was able to even remotely stop them was a rock singer by the name Nekki Basara, and his band: Fire Bomber. The Military created a unit, using Fire Bomber, to defeat the Protodeviln, code named: Sound Force. It was because the Protodeviln was defeated for a final time, since he was apparently this 'Anima Spiritia'. Fast forward three years, was the start of the Vajra War." 

"Hold up, the Vajra?" Keith interrupted the story, sounding like he was trying to pronounce it correctly, which he did.

"Yes, the Vajra. The Vajra are a race of insect like creatures that have the uncanny ability to evolve from damage taken. Meaning if they continuously take damage from a gun, that information is shared with the rest of the hive. In time, if they continuously encounter that attack, their armor will eventually become immune to it. They even became immune to Reaction Weaponry!" I shouted at the end because of how dangerous they were. I also showed projections of the creatures, which horrified mostly everyone in the room. Except Coran, Shiro and Keith. Shiro and Keith were more concerned and Coran looked more fascinated than anything.

"That's awful..." Allura looked terrified by the thought.

"It was. They could destroy an entire fleet in a matter of hours. One such fleet was called the 117th long distance exploration fleet. They, under the supervision of the S.D.F.N-4 Global, were studying the creatures when it was attacked by a Vajra swarm and destroyed. Only a few survived, and the story was covered up until just recently. The Vajra are... unique, so to say. They communicate through fold waves, and only a certain songstress could communicate to them. Her name was Ranka Lee, a survivor of the 117th Fleet. She, along with another songstress named Sheryl Nome, could sing to the Vajra to effectively stun them. Sheryl was only able to communicate with special earrings, but was later gifted the same abilities as Ranka." I paused to present the two songstresses before continuing.

"In the end, the Frontier Fleet was double crossed by a cyborg that tried to control the Vajra and was killed. The Vajra left the dimension and left behind numerous fold bacteria, which is how Ranka could communicate to the Vajra. This war lasted from 2048 to 2059." I looked down slightly, remembering something that I wish I didn't, "my... father was a pilot during the war. He was a full blooded Zentraedi pilot and served in the 93rd Long Distance Combat Fleet. His objective was to find and locate the missing Megaroad-11, which had gone missing some time earlier. His ship, the S.D.F.N-3 Focker and the fleet, was attacked by a swarm of Vajra... he was killed by a shot to the cockpit. Only the badly damaged S.D.F.N-3 and 1/8 of the fleet made it back." I looked down, I could feel a tear sting my eyes, though I still tried to hide it.

"I'm so sorry, Mathias. I know how much losing a father hurts," Allura came to my side and rubbed my back in a motherly manner. I missed a feeling like that.

"It's alright... I never knew much about him anyway," I said while looking back up.

"So, wait. That means you really are a hybrid!" Pidge spoke up from the background.

I nodded, "almost all of the subspecies of the Protoculture have the same DNA structures. My mother was a full blooded Human and my father a full blooded Zentraedi. My human features are the dominant traits, however," I took a deep breath 'I wonder if Alteans, if they had existed in our universe, were also descendants of Protoculture as well...' I thought to myself before mentally shaking the thought from my head, "anyway... back to the story."

"The Fold bacteria that once lived in the Vajra, with their original hosts gone, now sought a new host to survive, that being any humanoids. These fold bacteria, as well as a certain compound, were responsible for the Var Syndyrome, a deadly virus that transformed the host into a mindless mob. Violence was all over numerous systems from Var attacks. Fortunately, hope arrived in 4, later 5, singers called 'Walkure', a song group that were immune to the Var and could neutralize it through song." 

"Later, it was discovered that the Windermereans, that race I told you about earlier with the runes, were using the Var as mind control, after their war for independence. So, Chaos, a local contract organization, had to put a stop to it. One of the singers was apparently 'the Singer of the Stars', a legend of Windermere and the Protoculture. She was captured and manipulated into serving a corrupted Windermere politician, using a captured Protoculture ship, to take over the galaxy. He was stopped by pure will power of song and a sword to the chest, and peace returned to the galaxy...

...and now we're caught up to 2070." I turned off the datapad. Everyone was fascinated, well, Lance looked more bewildered than amazed. Probably because of the many girls that were shown.

"Man, so many events in your world revolve around music and culture, that's incredible," Shiro stated, intrigued by the influence of songs in your time.

"I'll say! I've never seen music weaponized to such a form!" Coran interjected as he twirled his mustache.

I frowned, "music isn't a weapon. The only reason why it was so effective is because all of the songs and singers touched the hearts and souls of our enemies and friends."

"What about your mother? You spoke about your father, yet never mentioned her at all," Coran asked, changing the subject suddenly.

I flinched when he mentioned that. That was a sore spot for you, which the others noticed. You took a deep breath, "my mother... was killed when I just turned 13, one year before the Windermere plot was uncovered. She had completely turned and was about to kill me when a nearby building exploded, killing her instantly. There was no way to save her..."

"You've had so much happen to you, and that's so saddening," Allura gently spoke.

"Y-Yeah..." I rubbed your arm, "As for me, I was on my own for a while until I was brought into the U.N Spacy two years ago and was trained to be a fighter pilot. I trained under Commander Taylor, who later took me in, he became something like a Guardian to me. We were later transferred to Macross Garrison a year ago. Before I fought against the Zentraedi fleet that later sent me here. We were called to a mission: to locate, analyse and find out what happened to the long lost S.D.F-2. We were the closest in the area, so we were called to its last known coordinates. One thing leads to another and now I'm here. So, that's my universe's history, and you know a little about me now." I looked down, "but now what am I supposed to do? My family is gone, I lost my friends, I was flung into a different universe and now I'm here..."

There was a dead silence that flooded the room, that was until, "You can stand by us."

"What?" I looked up to Shiro, who looked down at me.

"You can stand by us in our fight against Zarkon. Maybe fate brought you here for a reason?" Shiro placed his mechanical hand on my shoulder. It was cold to the touch, yet comforting, though I still shivered slightly from his touch.

"Yeah! And now we'll be here for ya whenever you need it!" Hunk added, giving a very cheerful expression.

A wavering smile smeared across my face, "you guys..." I suddenly stood proud and looked up to the Paladins, "alright! Let's defeat this Zarkon and save your universe!" A cheer arose from the kitchen. I guess I was now a part of this "Team Voltron" for now until... well... God knows what, I guess.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that night. 3rd Person Perspective

Allura laid awake in her bed. Normally, she would be fast asleep at this time, but right now, her mind was swirling with thoughts. Mathias just spoke about so many horrifying things, but what really tore her apart was the huge mechanized machines that Mathias had displayed to her and everyone else. It didn't help that Mathias went into such detail about their weapon capabilities as well. The thoughts of those weapons plunged into her mind. Her forehead began to sweat as she forced her eyelids shut, curling up into a sort of ball. A sudden realization alarmed her every nerve and consciousness as her eyes shot open with fear.

"If the Galra had managed to capture Mathias and not only manufacture his Reaction Weaponry, but probed and interrogated his mind, and gained such knowledge. I'm not sure if Voltron would be able to defeat such a power," she said to herself as the dark realization kicked in. Needless to say, she didn't sleep well that night.

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I plan to make smaller, more compact chapters, but we'll see (probably not lol).

Also, a Galran-ized Macross. I want to see that lmao.

Stay safe!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, I lied again, not as short as planned lol
> 
> 6800 words.


	4. Chapter 4: A fight for dear life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mathias and Pidge are ambushed on a deep space assignment to boost Mathias' fighter's comms. Only equipped with Mathias' VF-31, the two pray they can last long enough for help to arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know? The writers of Voltron: Legendary Defender were heavily inspired by SDF Macross and Robotech for their complex stories and characters? Who knew?!

_3rd person general perspective, but we're following Mathias_

It's been A couple days since Mathias was accepted into the team. Luckily for Mathias, he kept several pairs of casual clothes in the back of his fighter. It wasn't U.N Spacy regulations, especially the amount he had, but Commander Taylor always said to keep it close at all times. For everyday casual wear, Mathias had a simple black T-shirt and a sweat-jogger pants hybrid. The legs of the pants had a small white stripe down the legs of it. He also had a sweatshirt that was black and blue. It was his favorite as it sported his favorite colors and was super comfortable. Mathias had a pair of comfortable shoes that were gray and white. He didn't really enjoy the colors as they didn't fit his color scheme, but they worked.

Mathias had just gotten out of a shower, a cold breeze slamming itself onto him. Slightly shivering, he quickly dried himself off and changed. Mathias had no idea what he was going to do for today. He remembered he was going to do something, but couldn't recall what. It was like that all throughout the week, considering he had to learn so many new things about his environment and the people in it. Two days after his little history lesson, Mathias decided to learn about everyone here, as it was a good idea to get to know his new neighbors. It all started with Hunk when the blue girl-like haired pilot met the man in the kitchen. He was cooking up something that was much better than the space goo he had eaten prior. The two chatted for what felt like hours, while getting a reading of each other. Hunk was a very humorous person. He was always warmhearted, and always one to show affection to those in need. He was literally a human teddy bear. He was a good listener, and very good at engineering. Mathias was slightly surprised when he found out Hunk wasn't as interested in his fighter as he thought, considering the Yellow Paladin was an engineer.

After waving goodbye to Hunk, Mathias traveled up to the bridge, where Allura stood on the Teleduv and looked at the star charts. The two had spoken before, not counting the chat during the battle near the hangar, but not in this manner. She seemed very motherly; kind, loving, yet stern and aggressive when need be. Mathias became fascinated by Altea from what she spoke of. The two were in the middle of a conversation, laughing about the Teleduv when Coran barged in and suddenly snatched him in the middle of a sentence, simultaneously saying something about helping him with repairs of the Castle. Mathias nervously waved to Allura goodbye, with Allura covering her mouth as she giggled, as Coran literally dragged him out of the bridge and into various rooms. Coran explained the Altean tech as Mathias passed by each room in need of repair. It was so much different compared to the Macross, and it intrigued him. WIthin the day, Mathias had learned a good portion of the ship's systems and how it operated, though there was still lots to learn.

Yesterday, Mathias ran into Lance in the halls. At first, Mathias was skeptical, but Lance invited him into his room. Lance was still all show off and whatnot, but deep down, he had a good heart. The two talked about video games, with Mathias noting the vast differences in design for games in this reality. Next was Shiro, the 'Space Dad' as everyone else called him. Indeed, his mentality was that of a space dad. Always made sure everything was on point, made sure people watched their language and held a calm expression most of the time. Plus, Shiro was a great inspiration and someone he could really talk to if the hybrid pilot needed it.

Earlier today after lunch, Mathias ran into Keith training in the simulation room, as he called it. He was fighting a giant gladiator, finishing it off with a blow to the head when he arrived. It dissolved into pixels and nothingness, not bad for technology made for 10,000 years ago. Keith sighed as he wiped sweat from his head, then noticed Mathias standing there impressed. He asked if he could join the Red Paladin in his training session, which he surprisingly agreed. Mathias told him to wait for a moment, which he nodded. He dashed out of the room, through the massive corridors and ran to his fighter. Mathias grabbed the EX-GEAR systems and weapon from the cockpit and returned to the training room, equipped with the exoskeleton on him. The rest of the Paladins had arrived moments earlier, from the looks of it, so he had arrived in the middle of a conversation. Mathias could see the shocked expressions on everyone's faces as he showed them his military exo suit. Allura looked more concerned than anything. However, Pidge's face lit up in excitement once again. Mathias literally watched the little techno gremlin dart around him, examining everything about it. A nervous laughter escaped his mouth as she held up their training, raising his arm to examine the exo system. After a few minutes of her geeking out over his EX-GEAR, Mathias and Keith started up a simulation. Level 6, a little strong to begin with, but since this was Mathias' first time and he was with a partner, it was acceptable. Already, Mathias was showing promise with his armaments and high-powered heavy machine gun. Although he still took some damage, it was nothing major, only a few scratches and dents from the gladiator's attacks. The blue haired pilot stopped with the training after the match, saying he didn't want to increase the level and damage the only EX-GEAR system he had, bringing him to the present. After that skirmish, Mathias returned to his fighter and hopped back into the cockpit, returning the EX-GEAR back to it's standby mode. He decided to inspect the cockpit to see if anything was amiss, but not to his surprise, everything was still in order. Satisfied, he descended down the ladder and stepped onto the ground, taking a deep breath after that intense drilling session, despite it being only a few minutes long. As he touched the Castle grounds below, he looked down and gave a soft sigh before looking to his right and seeing a starry-eyed Pidge looking at him. He yelped in surprise, jumping back slightly and nearly losing his balance. She jumped slightly, raising her hands up.  
  
"I'm sorry!" she waved her hands defence, allowing him to regain his balance and sighing in relief.

"I-It's fine! You just... startled me, that's all," he said reassuringly, then a questioning look presented itself in his eyes, "why were you staring at me like that? ...is something wrong?"

She readjusted her glasses and slightly looked away before looking back at him, "Oh, no! I just wanted to ask if I can take a look at your fighter? Please? It looks so cool and I wanted to see how it works!" She asked, all giddy.

"You're the one that's super tech savvy, right?" Mathias placed a hand on his chin to think for a moment before shrugging, "I don't see why not. Where do you want to start?" She smiled and pointed to the body of the fighter. Mathias gave a low chuckle, "well, you see..."

_Mathias and Pidge spent the next few hours tearing through the schematics of not only his fighter and it's transformations, but everything about his world. Overtechnology, the Macross,_ _everything_ _. Each point he made, she would constantly study over and take notes. Towards the end, Mathias decided to give her a datapad about all of the technology from his world, how it works and what it does. Sure, it may not be entirely legal, considering the fact he is literally giving technological secrets away, but he was in a different universe, who could stop him? Besides, none of his technology exists here, or at least you think so anyway, within this universe. It would be nice to have someone else to help out, anyway._

"...and that's how we generate enough energy to fly in space in combat." Mathias finished his statement before looking back at the tech expert, only to see that she seemed to be slumping in her chair, with bags under her eyes. However, she was clearing trying to stay awake and listening to him. He smirked, rolled his eyes and walked over to her, who slowly raised her tired head in reply. "You tired?"

"...no..." her words were quiet and slurred. She yawned as she rubbed her eyes with her arm, "usually when I'm studying alien technology like this, I just burn through and deal with no sleep. Sometimes I listen to music to keep me awake, but nowadays, that doesn't help much."

Mathias sat on the table, away from her stuff, but just close enough to be in physical contact range, "you should get some sleep. You need sleep to be proficient, as your job as a Paladin, but also a pilot and in technology."  
  
"I swweeeaaarrrr, I'm fiiiine," she tried to stand up, but her exhausted legs gave out from beneath her. Mathias, quickly springing into action, grabs her in mid air from face planting into the ground. Mathias could've sworn she looked and sounded drunk right then, which made him laugh on the inside.

"At least sleep in your chair," he lightly said to her.

"Make me..." she grumbled as she laid her arms on the table and placed her head in them.  
  
Mathias scoffed jokingly, then paused for a moment, thinking of a way to force her to rest. An idea popped into his mind, he smirked, "alright, I have a deal for you. Tomorrow, I'm going to need help with a few system upgrades to my fighter, and potentially the EX-GEAR systems. Since you are intrigued by the technology, I'll allow you to hop along with me." She perked her head up in excitement, "BUT! You have to go to sleep."  
  
"Deal," she said, before trying to stand up, then yet again nearly falling onto the ground. Mathias, yet again, quickly grabbing her from hurting herself. She waved him off, but he didn't budge. She scowled, "duuude. I can walk on my own." Her words seemed more slurred and exhausted.

"No, you can't. W-Well, you can, but you'll only hurt yourself," Mathias replied back. He was right, she would only hurt herself or fall asleep in the halls. Pidge suddenly felt herself being picked up bridal style, her cheeks suddenly became pink.

"H-Hey, what the hell are you doing!?" She gave a tired yell as she looked up to the pilot. He looked at Pidge, his face was calm.

"I'm taking you back to your room." He suddenly looked back forward as he walked out of the hanger bay and into the halls, "uh which way is your room, again?" Pidge noticed he seemed to be trying to hide his face. Was he also blushing?  
  
"Three lefts, one right," she felt the tiredness start to consume her mind as her vision started to fade. Mathias, following her words, eventually made it to her dorms. Mathias looked down at the girl in his arms, she fell asleep in his arms. He blushed slightly as he opened the door to her room. He didn't even realize how messy it was in her room until he opened the door and the entire room was covered with... stuff. There was literally no way into her bedroom without tripping on something. There were several spots of clear space for him to step in, which he did gingerly to barely get to the bed, which was also covered in messiness. Mathias gingerly placed the sleeping girl in her bed and pulled the covers onto her. He quickly hopped around and closed the door. He placed his hands in his sweatshirts kangaroo pocket as he walked towards his dorm. Why did he blush? He had no reason to. He quickly made it to his own dorms and flopped onto the bed, sleep quickly overtaking him.

* * *

Pidge sat in the pilot's seat of Mathias' fighter. She was wearing her Paladin Armor in case of anything happening later in space. She didn't know why her mind told her to hop in, especially without Mathias' permission, but she assumed it was curiosity. The set up of the interior was far different from the fighters in the Galaxy Garrison or the Lions for that manner. The huds displayed the fighters body and numerous other systems that were in it, but the main thing she was looking for was where the controls for the GERWALK and Battroid modes were. She didn't see them, which made her wonder how he did it. She gripped, or at least attempted to, the controls that were barely out of her reach. She puffed angrily, shortness beats her once again...

"Don't press the third button on the stick." She jumped when she heard a voice come from her lower left. Confused, she looked over to see Mathias, one hand on his hip and his blue hair in the usual ponytail, standing below her in his pilot uniform. He didn't look upset, as he had a small grin on his face. "If you press that trigger, you'll release one of the Reactive Warheads, and I don't think we have the insurance to cover the costs if not only we die, but also if the castle implodes," he joked.  
  
Pidge scoffed, but gave a soft chuckle, "sorry about doing this."  
  
He waved a hand, "no worries, I do this all the time back on the Macross."

Pidge hopped out of the cockpit and landed on the floors below, "by the way, you never mentioned what you needed my help with last night."  
  
Mathias grabbed onto the extendable ladder, "I need to work on the comms on my fighter. It's not as powerful as yours or the Castle's. I have everything we need preinstalled on my fighter, I just need to get out on the field and fine tune them. It will be easier on the field, especially with help." He hopped into the pilot's seat, then looked down at the Green Paladin, "well... what are ya waiting for? Hop in!" Pidge smiled as she climbed the ladder and sat in the copilot's seat behind Mathias. The cockpit door closed around them as the systems began to howl with life. She could feel the power of the engines from the cockpit rev up with life. Mathias placed his helmet on his head and pressed a couple buttons and opened up the comms to the bridge. There was a pause before the screen showed the bridge, with Allura in the main view. "Allura, I know this is rather sudden, but I need some help. Can you open the Main Hangar Bay doors and allow us to leave the Castle?"  
  
Allura's expression was full of confusion, "why do you need to leave the Castle. Also, 'us'?"

"Pidge is with me. I need her to help me out with some modifications to the comms systems in my fighter to be more efficient and be able to operate for longer distances. Maybe some general maintenances along the way." Mathias said as Pidge's head popped out from the seat behind him.  
  
"I see..." Allura seemed more reassured, "why do you need to go out then? Can't you modify it here?"  
  
"Better to do it now on the field to be able to test it than in here," Mathias responded.  
  
Allura gave a small sigh, "alright, but stay in comms range." Before Allura could do anything, Mathias gave a small, nervous laugh.

"Yeah... about that... we need to go _outside_ of comms range for it to work," Mathias rubbed the back of his helmet. Before Allura could raise any objections, Mathias quickly followed up on his statement, "P-Pidge is here with me so we can boost the range of the comms, since mine doesn't compare to yours, and to see if it worked, we need to go outside my comms range for it to work!"

Allura glared at him for several moments, causing sweat to form on his head as if he was being interrogated. She gave in, letting out a small sigh, "alright, but come back if anything should go wrong." Mathias saluted, then the comms were ceased. His helmet vanished off of his head, allowing his hair to flow out. He looked back at the eager Paladin behind him and grinned.  
  
"You ready?" He asked.  
  
Pidge nodded, but noticed he didn't have his helmet on, "where's your helmet?"

"It's still on me, it's just like this to allow me to see better in combat, plus it allows my hair to flow out instead of being uncomfortably pinned inside my helmet," Mathias explained. She nodded as the fighter's engines powered up even more. She could feel it slowly lift up, VTOL capability as well, nice! The Hangar bay doors slowly began to open, revealing the open space and numerous stars beyond. "This is Mathias, Aigaion 1 is launching!" He shouted as he thrusted the throttle forward. Pidge was prepared for the amount of force on her body when the plane suddenly jolted forward and launched from the hangar. She gave a startled yelp alongside the sudden feeling of G-forces on her body. She looked back at the shrinking castle, but in mere seconds, it disappeared, with only the stars around them and the color of the plane's thrusters. For a couple of minutes, there was an uncomfortable silence that filled the cockpit of the fighter, that was until Pidge had the courage to speak up.  
  
"How does your fighter transform? I didn't see any sort of levers or buttons that initiated the transformations?" She asked, looking at the back of the blue haired pilot.

"Oh, it's the throttle stick. I can flip it to a certain degree and it changes the fighter mode," he explained, not looking back to Pidge. A small beeping sound made itself known around them, slightly alarming Pidge, "What's going on?"  
  
"Oh, it's just a notification that said we passed the maximum range for long range comms. Why, did it scare you? I'm sorry if it did," he looked back to the Green Paladin, who shook her head in response.

"It's okay," she replied. That's when she noticed, even after going outside maximum comms range, he still kept going forward. She raised an eyebrow, "hey, isn't this distance good enough to start with?"

Mathias thought for a moment before nodding, "yeah, this will do." He pulled the throttle back, and thrusted it down slightly. The fighter abruptly stopped by its legs suddenly flinging out, transforming into GERWALK mode. Pidge yelped as she nearly slammed head first into the seat in front of her.

She growled, "a little more of a warning or maybe do that easier next time?!"  
  
"S-Sorry!" Mathias said nervously. He did one of those fake coughs to break the tension, "A-Anyway. This is a good enough distance to do some experimenting on the comms. You should have a set up back there with a couple data pads and other items back there with you, you see them?"  
  
Pidge looked around her seat, indeed, there were a few datapads nearby. She grabbed them and turned them on, "I got them."

"Good, now let's begin," Mathias gave a thumbs up.

_For the next hour, the two worked on the comms system upgrades, but also began to talk about random things in general._

_** ~ fast forward ~ ** _

"...and that's why I'm out here, as well," Pidge said, looking down.  
  
Mathias looked back at the Green Paladin, "woah... so your brother and father are missing in space after the Kerberos Mission? I... I'm so sorry..."

"It's fine," Pidge returned.

Mathias paused for a moment. They had some time to kill, since they needed to wait for something to finish downloading anyway. A topic came into his mind, "say... when you first found me, I gotta ask: what did you do after you rescued me?"

Pidge placed a hand under her chin, "well... We brought your fighter into the hangar bay, and we pried open the cockpit and found you unconscious. We took you back and placed you in a healing pod, scanned you for any damages, then waited for the pod to finish healing you." She then remembered something that made her giggle, slightly rolling her seat.

Mathias looked back at her with a very puzzled expression, "what's so funny?"

She had trouble breathing from laughing, "La-Lance... Thought you-you were a girl and wanted to flirt with you!!"

Mathias immediately recioled back on his seat, his face filled with anger, confusion and distraught, not to mention entirely red. " **WHAT!?** HE TRIED TO FLIRT WITH ME WHEN HE FIRST MET ME?! LANCE, WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-?!" He was cut off by a beep from behind him. He hopped back around to see what it was. His eyes widened, it was a radar ping.  
  
Pidge slightly calmed down as the alarms picked up, "what's going on?!"  
  
"It's the Galra! They found us!" Mathias immediately got into combat readiness as six cruisers emerged from hyperspace. He quickly averted his gaze back to Pidge, "send a message to the Castle, HURRY!"  
  
"But we haven't tested the new systems yet?! We don't know if they will work!" She yelled, alarms blared once again, indicating the ships were launching fighters. From the pings, there were hundreds, maybe even a thousand approaching.  
  
Mathias muttered a curse (towards the fighters), then looked back at Pidge, "Pidge, I know, but if we don't send a message to the Castle to warn them, they could be outnumbered and destroyed!"

Pidge activated the comms systems, and for a moment, they flared with life until everything became staticy on the pad. She panicked, "they're jamming long range transmissions, including the distress beacon!"  
  
"Then I guess we're fighting our way out!" Mathias said as he gripped the controls.

"W-What?! But what about what Allura said?!" Pidge tried to protest.

"Pidge, we have to stall them, buy ourselves and the Paladins time. Not to mention, we can't reveal their location to the Galra. Even with the power of Voltron, they may be torn to shreds. This is our best course of action!" Mathias stated as he readied the fighters weapons systems.  
  
She thought for a moment, then looked up, becoming determined, "okay."  
  
"Good, strap yourself in. If you hate me when I'm stopping, you'll really hate me when I fly in combat. Also, try to find the source of the jamming, then we'll blow it with a reaction missile!" Mathias stated. Pidge gulped and locked herself into the seat, using her Paladin's suit to analyse the jamming frequency.  
  
"I'll try my best to find out what's causing the jamming as fast as I can!" Pidge states, immediately beginning to type away on the holo screen.  
  
"Good, because here they come!" Mathias shouted as laser fire began to erupt from the hundreds of approaching fighters. Pushing down the pedals and throwing the throttle down, the fighter began to charge away from the barrage of fire. The Galran fighters also began to fire missiles at the transformable fighter.

"Missiles! MISSILES!" Pidge screamed in pure panic.  
  
"I KNOW!" Mathias screamed as he threw the fighter around to dodge the first onlsaught of missiles, then changed the fighter into GERWALK mode and began to gun down the missiles, while also pulling away from the incoming barrage. A drop of sweat began to form on his face as he continued firing, "I just hope we can last long enough to come back home..."

**_ ~ Meanwhile, and a slight fast forward in time ~ _ **

"Pidge? Mathias? Where are you guys?" Shiro called through the halls. They haven't been seen all day, which began to worry the Black Paladin. He decided to check the Green Lion's Hangar, a.k.a, Pidge's workspace. As he arrived, he saw that the Green Lion was still there, but there was no sign of Pidge, and she didn't appear to be in the Green Lion either.  
  
"That's odd..." Shiro muttered to himself and he decided to check the hangar bay, perhaps they were there? Shiro made his way to the hangar, but when he opened it, he was surprised to find that Mathias' fighter was not there. Where did he go? Was Pidge with them? Next best thing: find Allura, maybe she knew where they went. As he made his way to the bridge, he quickly began to pick up the pace. If things did become horrible, he needed to be there for his friends and new teammate. He opened the door to the bridge to see Keith, Lance, Allura and Coran talking. The four suddenly turned to see Shiro who looked very slightly alarmed.

"Allura, have you seen Mathias or Pidge? I couldn't find them and Mathias' fighter was missing from the hangar," Shiro asked.  
  
"Actually, yes. Mathias contacted me saying he and Pidge were going out-" Allura tried to speak, but Lance had to interject her.

"Bet those two are secretly making out, don't ya?" Lance gave a smug smirk as he nudged Kieth's arms. Keith punched Lance's shoulder, giving an 'ow' from the Blue Paladin.

Allura gave an aggravated growl before continuing, "Mathias said they were going out to modify the comms on his fighter longer range missions. That was nearly two Varga ago."  
  
"Then something must have happened to them. We have to go out and find them!" Kieth spoke out.  
  
"Hold on, let's wait for a few more dobashes for them to contact us, then we'll move in on their last known position. Mathias might grow upset if we ruin his experiment," Allura suggested. The others in the room looked at each other and murmured for a moment before looking at the Princess and nodding.

**_ ~ Returning to our distressed Pidge and Mathias ~ _ **

Pidge gripped the sides of her seat, silently praying to the deities above as Mathias did numerous and violent spirals to avoid laserfire from the numerous Galran fighters behind them. Mathias had done an amazing job at taking down the overwhelming odds, but he knew one thing. The Galra could replace their losses and send more fighters, they were only a one fighter squad. Sweat was covering his face as he was slightly breathing harder than normal. Even though he wasn't moving in his seat much, the constant fighting was still draining a lot of energy in him.  
  
Pidge's world was spinning around her, distorting her vision as the battle raged on. Explosions and lasers flying everywhere. She held up a hand on her helmeted head, "ugh... I think I'm going to be sick-" She covered her mouth as she felt puke start to build.  
  
Mathias quickly averted his gaze back at the motion sick Paladin, his face angered, "HEY! NO PUKING IN MY FIGHTER, GOT IT?!" The fighter shook as an explosion rocked the fighter, bringing Mathias and Pidge back into focus, "no time to fight about vomit, do you know which battleship is sending the jamming signal."  
  
Pidge did some more typing before the holoscreen in her armor's gauntlets showed the data, "not good. All the ships are producing the signal, but it's strongest on that ship there." She pointed to a reinforced ship, which Mathias followed her finger to it. "If we knock out that ship, we'll have a brief moment of clarity for us to send out a distress call to the other Paladins."  
  
Mathias smirked, "okay." He punched the throttle to its fullest, "HERE WE COME!" The two began to charge at the large Galra cruiser, which in turn opened fire on the approaching fighter. As they got closer, Mathias looked back at the passenger behind him, "Pidge, the moment the grid falls, send the message."  
  
"Got it," she said as she prepared the comms for the moment. She didn't know how long of a window they would have, so she may have to be fast.  
  
"FIRE!" Mathias shouted as he pressed a trigger, which launched a second Reaction Missile. Mathias pulled away from the battleship, watching the missile collide into the hull of the massive cruiser. A large fireball erupted around it, engulfing most of the hull.  
  
Pidge pressed a button and began to speak, "GUYS, WE NEED HELP! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK FROM A GALRA FLEET! THEY AMBUSHED US! MATHIAS IS HOLDING THEM OFF, BUT I DON'T KNOW FOR HOW MUCH LONGER HE CAN HOLD OUT!" Pidge realised the jamming signal cut off half of her message, but it still transmitted.  
  
"Well? Did it go through?" Mathias asked, his breathing growing heavy.  
  
"Only half, the signal rebooted itself halfway into that message," Pidge stated. More fighters began to charge at the tired pilot, not to mention, the reinforcements that emerged from the hangars. They only blew up one cruiser in however long they have been fighting.  
  
"Let's hope... they got it in time..." Mathias huffed. His hands were slightly shaking as he gripped the controls. Never in his life has been fighting this intensely for this long. Sure, he fought in long battles before, but never like this. The fighters were approaching weapons range. Gripping the controls harder, he thrusted the throttle forward. "HERE I COME!! FACE THE FURY OF AIGAION SQUADRON!" He screamed as he continued fire at the approaching fighters.

_**~ Meanwhile ~** _

Allura was growing more concerned with each passing moment of silence from space. There was still no contact from Mathias or Pidge.  
  
"Anything?" Shiro asked as he reentered the bridge.

"Still nothing. I think Keith was right. They may be in trouble and we should move out immediately," Allura relented. She didn't want to interfere with both technicians' experiment, but at the same time, the unusual absence of communication is unnerving.

Just as she was about to step onto the platform to activate the controls, an alarm started to blare around them.

"What's that?" Shiro questioned as he looked at a holographic panel from a distance.

Allura stared at it for a moment before her eyes widened, "it's a distress call from Pidge!" At that moment, everyone else ran into the Bridge, their faces were mixed with worry, confusion or other expressions.  
  


Lance was the first to speak from the group, "what's going on, Princess?"

"We've received a distress call from Pidge and Mathias. Listen," Allura looked back at the arriving Paladins before looking back at the console and playing the message. A projection began to emerge in front of them. The image quality was horrible and staticy, but still recognizable as Pidge could be seen in front of them.

"-UYS, WE NEED HELP! WE'RE- -TACK FROM A GALRA FLEET! THEY AMBUSHED U-" The message was cut off half way. The others held horrified expressions on their faces.  
  
"Paladins, to your Lions, quickly! Allura, trace the signal's origin and send it to us!" Shiro immediately took command as everyone nodded and began to move out. The Castle began to pick up speed as they rushed to the signal's origin. The Paladins rushed to their Lions, however, an unsettling factor rushed into their minds. Without Pidge in the Green Lion, they couldn't form Voltron, meaning their offensive and defensive capabilities were limited. The Lions shot out of their respective Castle Hangars in front of the Castle ship, then sped off towards the battle ahead.

**_ ~ Returning to Mathias and Pidge ~ _ **

The debris of Galran fighters floated around Battroid as Mathias was out of breath. They wouldn't stop coming. The barrel of the gun the Battroid is holding was trailing smoke from the barrel from how long he had fired it from. The armor of the Battroid, while still intact, had taken some damage from the Galran weapons. They were powerful despite their profile, but their missiles were not as impressive, however.

Mathias looked up to see another massive wave of fighters approaching. He barely had a grip on the controls. His vision was starting to blur slightly from the intense fighting.

"Hey, you okay?" Pidge shook him slightly, which made his head roll, but it did wake him up a little more.

"I'm... exhausted... there's... just too many... of them..." Mathias wheezed out as the cruisers started to move in for the kill. They were like sharks in the water, circling their prey, toying with them. "I... I don't know how much fight I have left in me... but..." he gripped the controls, but just barely tighter than before, "I'll keep fighting..." he paused for a moment before looking back, "Pidge... how long can that suit... keep recycling air for you..?"  
  
"For a while, but not too long. Why?" Pidge asked. She could see the exhaustion that was plastered on his face. It was amazing how calm he was despite the circumstances.  
  
"I had an idea... but you're not going to like it, so hear me out..." Pidge looked at him begrudgingly before nodding slowly. Mathias gave out a raspy sigh before continuing, "those thrusters... on the back of your suit... should carry you back to the Castle... assuming they are still holding position at the same coordinates. While you float away to go get the others... I will hold the Galra back long enough for you to escape... they won't get me or my fighter... without a hell of a fight..." he looked back to the approaching fighters, then flipped the throttle stick downward, turning the ship from Battroid mode into GERWALK mode. The gun is still being held in the mecha's right hand.

"ARE YOU CRAZY?! YOU'LL BE KILLED!" Pidge practically screamed at him.  
  
"I know... but you are a Paladin of Voltron. You have to go back... it's the only way to protect the Universe... they need you more than me..." Mathias rasped out. His helmet came back as he messed with his suit. He looked back towards the oncoming fighters, ready to hit the ejection button to launch Pidge to get help. That's when four blue lasers came from far above him and destroyed a majority of the incoming fighters, the remnants of which scattered away. Moments later, four large lions began to assault the attackers.

"They made it!" Pidge shouted as they tore apart the oncoming squadrons.

"Just in the nick of time..." Mathias gasped out in relief.

Pidge felt something within her. It felt like the awakening of something. A roar of a lion could be heard as well, as a familiar presence made itself known. "Green..?" Pidge said out loud. She turned to her left to see her Lion floating next to her, it's eyes glowing yellow with life.  
  
"Is that your Lion? How... is it here?" Mathias asked out.  
  
"Our bond allows us to communicate. It must have launched when it picked up that I was in distress!" Pidge exclaimed, "here, let me out, then go back to the Castle of Lions. You need to go rest."

Mathias gave a small scoff, "make me." Pidge rolled her eyes as her visor extended down to act as her helmet. The cockpit opened, as the roars of the battle outside, once muffled, were now blasting in their ears. Pidge, using her thruster pack, floated inside of her Lion's mouth and entered the cockpit of her Lion. Sitting in her seat, she gave a thumbs up to Mathias, who had just closed his own cockpit back and returned the thumbs up.

"Pidge? Are you there?!" Shiro yelled through the comms. She was honestly surprised she could hear them through the comms.  
  
"We're alive. Mathias is heavily exhausted, but still here. How did you cut through the interference?" She asked a follow up question.  
  
"Counter-frequencies thanks to Hunk. Now let's form Voltron!" Shiro shouted as the Lions flew up into formation. Within seconds, the mighty warrior Voltron emerged from the conjoined Lions, and began to shred through the remaining fighters and ships with ease.

Mathias watched the formation of Voltron, as well as their assault on the ships, "huh... so that's Voltron... cool..." Mathias said to himself as he watched the giant mecha slash through the numerous fighters and tore apart the cruisers nearby. Slowly lifting his hands up, he shakily reached the controls. "Guess I gotta get back in the fight... too..." Mathias shakily pushed the throttle forward as his fighter changed from GERWALK mode into fighter mode. Everyone watched as Mathias rejoined the fight. Pidge, concerned that Mathias was pushing himself too hard, looked at his fighter in both panic and slight anger.  
  
"MATHIAS, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Pidge shouted.  
  
"Taking out the last of the fighters while you all take out those cruisers, now go!" Mathias returned as he engaged a squad that was charging the flank of Voltron.

"Paladins, take out those cruisers, then we'll go help Mathias with the clean up!" Shiro shouted as they charged the final three cruisers. Sure enough, after a couple of deep carves into the hulls of the engine blocks of all the ships, they blew up like stars in the night, "nice work, Paladins, now let's finish off the rest of the fighters-!" Shiro stopped speaking as the remaining fighters were wiped out by Mathias. The Paladins, with their work finished, broke away as they flew in formation back to the Castle, Mathias flying next to the Green Lion.  
  
"Mathias, are you okay?" Shiro asked him through the comms. He could hear Mathias huffing and gasping for breath, but still responded back to him.

"I-I'm... I'm okay... I'm just really exhausted... I don't... think... I would've lasted... much longer... thanks guys... ...I need a shower..." Mathias said to himself, but everyone else still heard it and laughed. As they landed, Mathias turned to GERWALK mode and rotated his fighter back to where the nose was facing the main hangar door, then turned it back to fighter mode so it could land. The cockpit slowly opened, and Mathias barely managed to keep himself from falling to the ground as he descended. He must have been going really slow, as everyone else, except Coran, had arrived at the hangar to meet with him, running to his side as he collapsed onto the floor. When the others rushed to his side to check to see if he was still breathing, they found he had fallen into a deep slumber. Satisfied he was okay, Shiro picked up the sweaty, exhausted pilot and took him back to his quarters. Upon entering his quarters, Shiro laid the pilot into his bed and closed the door behind him as he left, leaving the sleeping pilot to rest in his dreams.

**_ ~ At Zarkon's Command ship ~ _ **

The purple commander approached the throne of the menacing Galran ruler with nervousness. It was not just the sight of his leader that frightened him, but the information he withheld that shook him to his core.  
  
"M-My lord," the commander stuttered as he kneeled to the Galran ruler, the nearby witch Haggar, watching with a glare. He had a feeling as if she could see into his very soul.

"You said you had information about the Lions and something else? What is it..?" Zarkon bellowed out to the commander, which made him physically shake.

"Y-Yes, sire. Just yesterday, we encountered them in the Xaluan System. We managed to damage the Castle of Lions with a surprise attack, but they destroyed most of our fleet," the commander solemnly said, when he looked up to Zarkon, he was glaring at the commander with fury. The commander raised his hands in defense, "b-b-but there's more." He clicked a button he pulled from his pocket as a holographic projection of a fighter destroying Galran forces with ease and transforming into three different modes. Zarkon's eyes shifted from fury to slight puzzlement.

"It seems that they have a new weapon... or a new ally..." Haggar hissed as he glared at the projection.

"However, this is what I really wanted to show you, as a warning," the projection played a video of the fighter charging a cruiser with immense speed. It then fired a missile and broke off. When the missile collided, there was a large fireball that engulfed most of the ship, breaking it apart and causing it to explode. Zarkon was intrigued by this, but also it made him raise an eyebrow, so to speak. Haggar's glare tightened as the projection ended and the commander rose to his feet. "I came to warn you of those missiles and the pilot who controls them, sire."  
  
Zarkon placed a hand on his cheek, "if those missiles are mass produced, they will have a devastating effect on my Empire," he paused so he could stand up, "ALERT ALL UNITS. THAT FIGHTER AND THOSE MISSILES ARE TO BE CAPTURED AT ONCE! OR, AT THE VERY MINIMUM... ELIMINATED." His eyes were filled with the burning yellow fire of hatred. Nothing else would stand in his way of conquest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, uploads will decrease DRASTICALLY as I am in school, not to mention the amount of work that love to give makes me want to die.
> 
> A rating/comment/review is appreciated for improvements to the series!
> 
> Much love and take care!


	5. Chapter 5: Bloodshed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan that involves taking down a Galran Cruiser from the Inside for intelligence and prisoner release goes wrong with an injured Paladin and a daring escape.
> 
> Mathias hides something after the battle, one that literally drains him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter might be rushed slightly, had a lot to do, so putting this out was difficult.
> 
> Also, I want to point out a reminder that there will be major story changes for Voltron! So, please keep that in mind. The next chapter (not the next part) will be from the canon story, however! 
> 
> This is also a Pidge and OC focused story.

It's been three weeks since the battle that drained Mathias' energy. He had recovered quickly, returning life to normal. Galran activity had decreased drastically over the past two weeks. While unsettling, it did give everyone a nice break in the meantime. Hunk practiced recipes, Lance... being Lance, Keith practicing on his techniques with his Bayard, Shiro strengthening his bond with his Lion, Mathias and Pidge working on new inventions and technologies together, Coran tidying up the Castle and even Allura stopping to take five. That all changed when a Blade of Mamoria contacted them just moments ago about a Galran prisoner convoy near the Castle, returning everyone to the battle hardened state. Everyone had gathered on the bridge to examine an image of the convoy of Galran ships, as well as the prisoner transport cruiser. It wasn't heavily armed, but not unarmed either. They were deep with an asteroid belt, as if using it for cover.

"Do we have any intel about who or what is onboard the ship?" Mathias asked, staring at the prisoner ship's escort cruisers.

"I'm afraid not, but regardless of that, we have to rescue everyone on that ship," Allura responded with a very determined look on her face.

"Does anyone have a plan for how we can rescue the prisoners?" Keith asked, bringing up a big topic.

"I think we should take all the Lions out, destroy the escorts, board the ship, save the prisoners, and BOOYAH, we're done!" Lance made exaggerated movements as he 'explained' his plan out to the group. Shiro and Keith looked unamused.

Mathias shook his head, "not a good idea to send all the Lions out like that." Everyone looked at him strangely.

"Why not? I mean, look at that puny fleet. They wouldn't even last five minutes!" Lance shouted while crossing his arms on his chest.

"Commander Talyor always said 'keep on your guard, don't go all out and use everything at once. Doing so will put you in bad positions.' From what I've seen of Voltron. Should something go wrong, we can't let the Galra get all the Lions at once should they have an unexpected ace up their sleeves," Mathias explained. Everyone looked at each other and nodded.

"What do you propose?" Allura questioned, raising her eyebrow.

"Do you have a map of the internals of the ship, or at least that type of ship?" Mathias asked. Allura nodded and pressed a few buttons on the console. A projection of the ship's interior appeared in front of him. He studied the ship for a moment, murmuring to himself before looking back at the image of the convoy and the asteroid belt.

"Well..?" Lance seemed impatient.  
  
Mathias placed a hand under his chin, thinking for a moment before a light bulb went off in his head, "alright, I got a plan." Everyone listened as Mathias began to explain his plan, "First things first, I need to know: who here pilots the most defensive or armored Lion?"  
  
Hunk raised his hand, "that would be me and Yellow."  
  
"Alright. I want you to remain out of the battle zone, yet nearby it. I'll explain why in a moment," Mathias said. Hunk gave a nod as Mathias looked back to the ships and continued, "so, these ships are in an asteroid belt, meaning that they have limited mobility. Shiro, Lance and Keith. You will be the main fighters of the battle. Your job is to deal with the nearby cruisers and fighters. While you guys are taking care of the main forces, Pidge and I will board the ship in my fighter and free the prisoners. I was also thinking Pidge could access the reactors and set them to overload. Once we free the prisoners, we will jettison them in an escape pod or pods. The two of us will escape and rendezvous back with Hunk to allow Pidge to go back to the Green Lion. This is where Hunk comes into play. He will swoop in and retrieve the pod or pods that escape and transport them back to the Castle. The Castle will remain outside of the combat zone, unless things go to hell, then Allura and Coran will push in to assist. Keith, if things go bad for us, move out of the fight outside and come help us in the ship. Any questions?"  
  
"So I just escort the prisoners out? Okay, not bad, I like it," Hunk said with relief.

"I, for one, like the plan," Shiro stated, though he wasn't too keen with Mathias' use of language. Everyone else seemed to agree.

"Then it is agreed. We launch immediately!" Allura shouted as she activated the Teleduv, and the ship jumped into a wormhole, it's destination: the prisoner convoy.

** ~ Fast forward ~ **

The ship jumped out of the wormhole, with everyone launching to their respective areas. Mathias, Pidge and Hunk on standby while the others attacked. Small detachments of fighters launched from the cruisers, but not as many as one would expect. As Shiro, Lance and Keith engaged the fighters and the cruisers. Mathias and Pidge quickly closed into the prisoner ship's hangar. As they entered, they were greeted by the sentries inside opening fire, however, their weapons would do little to know damage. Quickly transforming to GERWALK mode, he gunned the numerous sentried in the room before landing on its feet. The two quickly hopped out of the cockpit and onto the ground. Mathias being equipped with his EX-GEAR systems and a high caliber assault rifle. The two dashed into the hallways. Following the schematics of prisoner type ships, they were coming close to a control panel which should give them access to the ship's internal systems. However, as the two of them reached it, they discovered that the console had been destroyed by debris. The two frowned, they would have to change the plan.

"Guys, come in!" Mathias called through his comms.

"Mathias, have you found the panel yet?" Shiro asked. A muffled explosion could be heard through his comms.  
  
"We have... but unfortunately... it's been destroyed..." Mathias looked down to Pidge, who looked back up to him.

"That's not good, we may have to fall back if we can't get access to their systems!" Shiro shouted.

"No, it's just a minor setback. We still have prisoners to rescue. We'll do it one at a time, I guess," Mathias said, but Pidge looked like she had a different idea brewing in her mind.

"Alright, over and out!" Shiro said as the comms went dead.  
  
"There's another way we can do this," Pidge stated.  
  
Mathias tilted his helmet sideways slightly, "shoot."  
  
"You go rescue the prisoners, I'll go to the reactor room and overload the engines. We'll meet up after the prisoners escape and we'll leave," Pidge suggested.

Mathias' helmeted gear opened to reveal his pilot helmet underneath, then he took off his helmet. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder, then spoke in a soft, gentle voice, "Pidge... that's dangerous... I know you're an amazing fighter and a Paladin, but even that seems like too much for you. Are you sure you'll be okay all by yourself..?"

Pidge frowned slightly. The way he was speaking, and the way he was concerned, it reminded her of her brother. She looked back up to the eyes of Mathias. His expression was full of concern. She nodded, "I can take care of myself. I'll call you when I set the engines to overload. I'll set the timer to 10 dobashes- er... 10 minutes."  
  
Mathias released his grip and nodded, putting on his helmet again as the EX-GEAR's helmet encompassed his pilot helmet. The two separated, with Pidge running towards the main reactor while Mathias dashed down the corridors to the prisoner chambers. Mathias almost forgot that his suit could fly, so he engaged his thrusters to make it to the chambers faster. He pulled up a map on a hud in his helmet. A small blip on the hud indicated that he was getting close. He touched back to the ground as he approached a corner. He peeked around to see multiple sentries guarding multiple doors. He turned the corner, aiming his weapon at the nearest sentry. Pulling the trigger, his weapon unleashes a fury of bullets upon the Galran sentries. The first couple of sentries fell, before the remaining few realized he was there and returned fire. Mathias scoffed as he maneuvered his way around the enemy laser fire while continuing to return fire. He could hear terrified shrieks coming from some of the cells within. He was scaring the prisoners, he had to make this quick. Aiming for the head, he shot down the last remaining sentry. It fell with a satisfying *clang!* as Mathias lowered his weapon. He gave a sigh of relief, that was one step over with. He hovered his way over to the first cell and pressed a button, opening it. No one was inside, but he could see that the conditions of the cell could drive anyone to insanity if given the chance. Mathias turned his attention to the second cell and opened it. This cell held several aliens inside who not only held their arms up when they saw the light, but also coward when they saw him.

One of the aliens looked up at Mathias and noticed he wasn't a sentry, "who... are you?" Their voice was raspy, probably from extensive damage by the Galra's torture from Mathias perspective.

"My name is Mathias. I'm a fighter pilot for Aigaion squadron. I work directly with Voltron. We're here to rescue you!" Mathias said as his helmet protector unfolded to the back of his head, revealing his pilot helmet underneath. He extended his hand out to one of the aliens, who gladly took it and stood up. The others slowly stood up as well. Mathias pointed to the open doorway, "quickly! Help me with the prisoner cells, but stay with me! We have a plan, so follow my every command!" The other aliens nodded as they rushed out to open the other cells, and free the other prisoners.

Once all the prisoners were freed, Mathias could see about prisoners that gathered in the hallways. Several of them had picked up the carbines from the fallen sentries, which added to the defense. Mathias frowned at the thought that the escape pod could possibly not hold that many souls on board. They ran to the escape pod, which to Mathias' surprise when a majority of the prisoners entered, there was more than enough room for everyone.  
  
"I got the prisoners! I'm loading into the pod!" Mathias shouted through the comms.

"GUYS! I OVERLOADED THE REACTOR, BUT I'M PINNED DOWN BY GALRA! TIME UNTIL DETONATION: FIVE DOBASHES-!" Pidge suddenly screamed towards the end of her sentence.

"PIDGE?!" There was a collective call from everyone's voice. There was no response but an eerie static.  
  
"I'll go find her and make sure she's safe! Stay to the plan!" Mathias shouted. If his mind was right, Dobashes were longer than minutes, so he had about seven minutes before a reactor breach. He looked at the prisoners who had weapons and pointed to them, "the ones who have weapons, I need to hold off any Galra reinforcements for four dobashes. If we're not back by then, just leave in the pod, we'll be behind you." The aliens nodded and took defensive positions near the pod. Mathias, using his thrusters, shot down the numerous hallways in order to reach the reactor room. Time was of the essence, and he certainly didn't have a lot of it. The reactor room was far, but not too far that would warrant an emergency.

_ 5 Dobashes, 7 ticks remaining... _

Mathias could hear the increasing sound of weapons fire grew nearer as he approached the room. The door had been blasted off, along with the remains of several sentries which had been destroyed by a melee strike. Purple lasers were colliding into a nearby wall. Mathias peeked over to see Pidge just squirming to grab her helmet from the open without being shot. She then hid behind an ever so shrinking piece of a small wall, as the laser fire was tearing pieces of it off. She was wounded in her arm, he could see a bloody wound from a jointed area, which offered less protection than the rest of her armor. Growling, he rounded the corner with his weapon drawn and open fired upon the Galra. Pidge suddenly jerked her head and looked at him when he zoomed over to her, taking cover as the enemy fire intensified.

"Mathias?!" Pidge shouted in total disbelief, but the weapons fire muffled her voice.  
  
Mathias ducked below the cover to look at her with a very serious look, but he also had a very concerned and slightly startled expression on his face, "can you run?" Pidge nodded, then grunted in pain as she gripped her elbow. Blood began to ooze from the would like a small fountain. Mathias muttered to himself a curse, then pointed to the destroyed doorway. "I want you to run out of here and around the corner. I'll follow you shortly. I'll cover you while you make a break for it, okay?" Pidge nodded again as an explosion rocked the destroyed cover in front of them. "GO!" Mathias shouted as he stood back up and continued firing, while Pidge ran to the doorway. The Galran drones, despite falling from Mathias' fire, didn't focus on him. As soon as Pidge began to run out, they immediately fired upon the small Paladin. Pidge only made it half way from Mathias' position to the doorway when a sudden pain hit her in the knee, then two more in her back. She screamed as she fell to the ground, a loud thud echoed around her.

"PIDGE!!" Mathias screamed, then howled in anger as he tore apart the drones. He was going to make them pay! One by one, shrapnel and sparks followed the destroyed drones. One by one, each drone fueled Mathias' rage. When the last drone dramatically fell, Mathias zoomed over to Pidge, who was whimpering in pain. Mathias grabbed the injured Paladin in his arms in bridal style. His expression was encompassed with worry. Mathias moved out of the room and into a nearby hallway. He gently placed the injured Paladin on the ground, but leaning on a wall. Pidge grunted before her head hung slightly. This alarmed Mathias, "Pidge?! PIDGE!"  
  
"It... hurts..." she whimpered as she looked back at him, her head was slightly shaking from the very limited energy. Mathias could see tears building up in her eyes. Small dark shadows had formed under her eyes.  
  
"Where? Where does it hurt?" Mathias said gently. Despite the current situation, he didn't want to make one of his closest friends panic.  
  
Pidge, using her unshot arm, shakily pointed to her knee and her other arm. "Two... more... on my... back..." Mathias nodded as he gently grabbed Pidge's shoulder and moved her forward to see the extent of the damage. She groaned in pain, hurting him on the inside. Mathias looked at her back plates, only to find there were minor scorch marks from weapons blasts, but nothing penetrated her armor. A small wave of relief washed over him, but not much. Now comes the more painful part: the bloodied wounds. Luckily for him, his suit had two compartments available which he stored medical supplies in. Normally, other soldiers would throw ammo in those areas, but he kept medical bandages and healing pads with him. Seeing the extent of the wounds, his own healing pads wouldn't work, so he'll have to stop the bleeding at least.

"Those shots on your back didn't penetrate your armor, only scorched it," Mathias gently said as he laid her back on the wall, he grunted when her back made contact, "now, let's see if we can stop the bleeding and get you home." Mathias opened a pouch which had a long white bandage roll from his suit. He rolled some around his wrist and broke it off. Just before he began to wrap his bandaged hands around Pidge's leg, he stopped to look at Pidge, "this is going to hurt... a lot. Are you ready?" She slowly nodded and took a deep breath in. Mathias did the same as he tightly wrapped the bandage around her knees. Pidge cried out from the sudden spike in pain. Mathias tied the ends into a knot and looked down at his handiwork. The bandage immediately became a darkened red, but it did seem to stop the bleeding. He moved on to her arm. "Extend your arm if you can," He asked. She slowly nodded and raised her shaky, injured arm in front of her. Mathias quickly wrapped it in a bandage as well, tightening it to keep blood from leaking. The pain wasn't as bad as her leg, but Pidge still howled in pain. Mathias pulled her into his arms as he slowly stood up. "Hold onto me as tight as you can-" he was cut off from the weapons fire of sentries that had ambushed him. "HOLD ON!" He shouted as he took off from the hallway, with laser fire ensuing behind him. Pidge grunted as she held on for dear life.

_ 2 Dobashes remaining _

Every hallway they came into, they ran into more reinforcements that followed them down. Pidge, still clinging on, noticed they passed near the main hangar bay, where were they going?  
  
"We passed by the hangar bay!" Pidge shouted pointing backwards, only to realize the amount of soldiers in the faint distance chasing them.  
  
"We have to check up on the prisoners, they're holding the escape pod and we have to help them-" Mathias suddenly grunted as a blast hit him in the back of the suit. It was followed by six more shots around the back. Mathias nearly fell forward, crushing the poor girl before he regained his balance and kept zooming away from the soldiers.  
  
"MATHIAS!?" Pidge shouted in worry, seeing her friend had been hit multiple times.

"I'm okay! Those rounds didn't penetrate my suit! How much time do we have left?"

"About one and a half dobashes!" PIdge shouted as they arrived at the escape pod. All of the prisoners had boarded, but as they saw both humans approached, a couple came back out. Mathias could hear an approaching force of Galran drones approaching. He quickly rushed over to the pod and the prisoners.  
  
"We were about to launch, come on!" One of the prisoners waved as Mathias, still carrying Pidge followed them. Mathias, knowing the approaching soldiers, the time left, and seeing the pod controls, sighed slightly. Just as they were about to ensure the prisoners' leave, Mathias placed Pidge in the pod and stood in the doorway. Pidge looked up at him in confusion and surprise.

"What are you doing?!" She shouted at the pilot.

"You're too injured to come back with me to my fighter. Not to mention, there are numerous Galra on their way here. They will cancel the launch and kill you all. Best to send you with the prisoners for Hunk to retrieve you," Mathias calmly stated.

"Guys! Get out of there! The ship's going to blow!" Shiro shouted through the comms, but Mathias ignored him entirely by cutting off his comms temporarily.

"I'll hold them off for you to escape," Mathias could see the shocked and saddened face of Pidge, so he tried to give a small, warm smile, but his helmet blocked anyone from seeing it, "I'll make it out, promise." An explosion from the doors behind them forced Mathias to press a button, shutting the escape pod's door. Pidge painfully stood up and leaned on the door to look through a small window. She saw Mathias butt the controls with his rifle, destroying it as Galran soldiers emerged from a smoke cloud by the explosion earlier. Mathias moved in front of the door and began to fire upon him. He took one last look behind him, looked at Pidge, and gave a thumbs up, before scowling as he returned fire in front of him. The pod launched as Pidge screamed Mathias' name, as if that would help. His form became increasingly smaller until it was unseeable at all. Soon enough, the ship slowly began to shrink in view as space began to show itself around her. She could see the remains of Galra fighters and cruisers nearby. Her eyes began to water as her friend was still on board sacrificing himself so she could escape.

A voice suddenly snapped her back into reality.

"PIDGE?! WHERE ARE YOU?!" Shiro frantically shouted through the comms.

"I'm in the escape pod, wounded, but Mathias is still onboard the ship!" She shouted, her voice slightly croaking.

"WHAT?!" Everyone else shouted. Hunk, in the Yellow Lion, grabbed the escape pod and began to tow it back to the Castle, but not before a massive explosion engulfed the Galran prisoner cruiser, followed by numerous internal explosions along the hull. Pidge screamed as tears flowed through her eyes. She banged on the glass with her fists, her tears building at the bottom of her helmet. She could smell them as they built up below her. Everyone else wasn't favoring any better. Shiro and Keith both held looks of shock on their faces, while Lance and Hunk had tears in their eyes. Allura and Coran, who had been watching the battle unfold from the distance, were both speechless. They had just lost a valuable member of their team. Hunk dragged the pod out of the ever closing combat zone and towards the Castle.

Shiro watched as the ship engulfed itself in a fireball. He wanted to just stop and mourn, but the duty comes first. "Paladins, don't let those remaining fighters engage Hunk!"  
  
"Got it..." Lance and Keith's voice was quieter than usual, but nevertheless, they pressed on the attack. The last portion of the battle was a mop up, as all three Paladins effortlessly destroyed the remaining fighters. That was until a squadron managed to sneak behind Lance while the others were busy.  
  
Shiro noticed it at the last second, "Lance, on your 6!"  
  
"I know I can't shake them!" He shouted as he tried to maneuver his way out of this, but the fighters still remained behind him. He could see they were charging their weapons. He braced for impact. He waited... and waited... but nothing happened. He opened his eyes to see a barrage of blue bullets tear up a fighter from underneath it. He was confused, _'there was no else around to help me out and the others were busy, who could've-'_ That's when a massive body flew past him, dawning a black and blue color scheme.

"You guys seriously thought an explosion like that would've stopped me?" A voice came through the comms. Everyone's expression lightened greatly when they realized who that was.

"MATHIAS!" Everyone shouted. A projection of his face appeared in his fighter, he seemed to be wincing in pain.

"Ow... geez, that combined scream hurt my ears..." he said admittedly as he rubbed the back of his head.

"We're glad you're okay!" Hunk squealed through the comms, as he had made it to a hangar bay to drop off the prisoners and Pidge.

"Sorry for making you worry," the blue haired pilot apologized after she shot down the last of the enemy fighters.

"It's alright. Let's just go home, then we can talk," Shiro said as they made their way back to the Castle. Even though things went well, it was just a long day.

_~ Fast Forward a few hours ~_

Mathias flopped onto the couch in his casual clothes as everyone else did the same and gathered around him. It's been a couple of hours since the battle. Pidge had just gotten out of a healing pod moments ago, so she had missed some current events.

"How did you escape? I didn't see you leave the ship when it exploded," Pidge asked.

Mathias flinched a little. Just moments ago before entering the lounge, she scolded him for scaring her, but she was also thankful he did it for the prisoners and her. Mathias smugly smiled at her, "skill." She rolled her eyes and scoffed. Mathias gave a small laugh, "okay, so what happened was after the pod was jettisoned, I ignored the enemy weapons fire and made it into my fighter, which those drones had swarmed like insects. As soon I hopped in the cockpit, the ship exploded, flinging me out behind it. The Pinpoint Barriers were the only thing that kept me from dying and detonating the last two Reaction Missiles."  
  
"And you're sure you're okay? Pidge said you took several shots to the back. Are you sure you don't want to go to a healing pod?" Shiro asked, drawing concern with what Pidge had said to him earlier.

"I swear, I'm fine!" Mathias protested. Shiro was about to say something else when Hunk intervened.

"I'm famished, anyone want to grab something to eat?" the yellow giant asked, a smile on his face.

Mathias immediately smiled and shot straight up, "aw hell yeah! Let's go!" He raced out of the lounge. All the Paladins looked at each other before either shaking their head with a smile, laughing as they followed Mathias' lead.

_ ~ Fast forward ~ _

Pidge was in her dark room, her glasses reflected the glare of her laptop on her face. She furiously typed away at equations on the door. Mostly everyone had fallen asleep by now, the exceptions being Mathias, Shiro, Keith and maybe Allura depending on the day. She looked at the time on her laptop. Nearly midnight, damn, she was tired now? She's usually tired around 2 or 3 AM. Unexpectedly, a knock came from her door. She was wondering who it could be at this time of hour. That knock wasn't aggressive, so she didn't think it was Keith. She disregarded that thought as she set aside her computer and groggily opened her door. She found Mathias rubbing his eye with his elbow, shadows deep under his eyes.

"Hey, Pidge. Sorry to bother you, but is it okay if I stay with you for a little while? I... just wanted to see a close friend right now..." Mathias rubbed the back of his head. His hair was slightly messy and random, despite it still being in a ponytail. Pidge moved out of the way, allowing him in. Her face felt warmer than usual, was it because he admitted that she was a close friend? That was probably it. Pidge moved several things out of the way to allow some room for both Mathias and herself to sit on her bed. Mathias sat in a corner while she sat in the middle of the room. She picked up her laptop and was about to start typing when a gentle hand was placed on her right shoulder. She looked up to Mathias, who held a sincere look on his face.

"Pidge, I need to say something to you... and it's important," Mathias said softly.

Pidge gulped, her face was starting to blend with red. "O-Okay?"  
  
Mathias looked down slightly, "I'm sorry."

Those words really caught her off guard. Pidge tilted her head slightly in confusion, "for... what..? What are you apologizing for?"

"I... wanted to say I'm sorry for... earlier... with you and the escape pod. I only wanted to keep you safe because unlike you, I'm literally a nobody here. You are a Paladin, you have much more significance in this world than I do. I'm here by an accident..."

"Mathias, you're not nothing... stop treating yourself like that," Pidge said in a somewhat scolding manner, but also hearty as well. "You're more than an accident, you're my friend, one of my closest I've had for a while."  
  
"What about the others? Aren't they also your closest friends?" Mathias asked. He suddenly shivered and huddled his back into a corner.

"They are, but you are so unique," Pidge smugly pushed up her glasses, "plus, your fighter is top notch."  
  
"Are you implying I'm only cool because of my fighter?" Mathias asked, a small smile forming on his face.

"Maaaybe," Pidge said without missing a beat. Mathias gave a hefty, wholehearted laugh, Pidge slowly doing the same. The two laughed for a while before Mathias calmed down. Pidge suddenly saw he looked more famished than before.

"I know this is a little weird, but... mind if I... close my eyes a second..." Mathias yawned slightly, he pressed up more into the corner. His eyelids falling upon each other.

"Sure, but no snoring," she said as she placed her laptop on her lap again and began typing.

"Thanks, Pidge... it's getting... colder... in here... hah... maybe it's just me... who needs a small nap..." Pidge stopped to see that Mathias had fallen asleep peacefully. Pidge didn't think much of it, as they were in the dark still and her laptop was the only source of light. She typed away for another few minutes, looking over several lines of code that was frustrating her internally. She spread her hands out on the mattress as she leaned back slightly. Her right hand moved over to a spot near Mathias. Her hand flinched when her hand felt something wet and somewhat cold on her hand. She moved her right hand off of the spot. Why was her blanket wet and cold? She pulled her hand closer to her laptop, seeing something that caught her eye. Her hand was covered in something red, that was slowly oozing around her. She froze, it was blood. She quickly laid aside her laptop and hopped off her bed, quickly jumping across her messy room to the light switch controls and activated the lights. The sudden occupation of light in her dark room hurt her eyes, but now she could see clearly. Her pupils shrunk at the sight. Blood was all over his clothes. Blood trickled down his hands like a river. He had a small smile plastered on his face. Pidge could see the corner where he had been sitting was engulfed in blood. She covered her face in pure terror.

"M...Math...ias..?" Pidge whispered out, her voice barely making it to even her ears.

No response from the pilot. She quickly ran over to him, knocking over multiple stacks of books and other items in her room. She grabbed the shoulders of the blue haired pilot. Her hands quickly soaking with blood.

"Mathias?!" She shook him slightly, there was no response. His head hung down, his body not even moving. Tears had formed in her eyes, flowing down her face like waterfalls

 **"MATHIAS!!!"** She tore up her vocal cords to scream out his name, but the only response she got was a devastating, utter silence...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun Dun DUUUUNNN!!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this story so far!
> 
> ...e-even though it was really dark...


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